


Modern Art and Hair Dye

by GinForInk



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Big Bang (Band) - Freeform, Businessman Suho, Domestic Fluff, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Past Kim Joonmyun | Suho/Do Kyungsoo | D.O, Single Father Kris, Single Parents, Slow Burn, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 21:06:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 61,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7137107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinForInk/pseuds/GinForInk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Suho's moody office janitor, Kris, has an adorable daughter, beautiful dyed blond hair, and keeps getting in the way of Suho's relationship goals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Suho cancelled the second date less than six hours beforehand, and because he felt so tired of cancelling dates he did it without his normal finesse, calling on his office phone so he’d have a good excuse to end the call quickly. “I’m sorry, but I think we should cancel the date. Reschedule? No I don’t think so. I’ve just thought things over and I’m not interested in another one. No, I did have fun, that’s not the problem, its just not what I’m looking for right now. I’m sorry. Yes, don’t worry about it. I’m at work so I have to go now. I’m sorry. Maybe I’ll see you later… or not. Hm. Well goodbye. Yes, I’m sorry. Goodbye. Have a nice day.” 

He flinched as he hung up. “Have a nice day?” Tao asked from the doorway where he’d been waiting to give moral support. 

“You’re supposed to be making me feel better about this, Tao, not pointing out how awkward and awful I am.” 

“I’m sorry. That was all done pretty well until the ‘Have a nice day.’ Very direct. No beating around the bush. Polite but disinterested. It was good.” Tao adjusted his suit cuffs and glanced out the glass walls over the city, eyes narrowed against the afternoon’s bright glare. “As long as you think it was the right choice. You were so happy after that date.”

Suho just grunted, staring at the top of his computer screen where his half-made presentation sat waiting for him, yet another explanation to the board as to why his department, a new segment of the advertising sector focused on advertising other people’s products effectively, was a good investment and not something to get rid of during budget cuts. He tried not to think about all the fun he could have been having tonight, but no, it wasn’t right to lead on nice men or women for a few fun dates and then ditch them later because they were too much fun. Not long-term life goals kind of material. Best to end it before things got out of hand and people developed feelings. Maybe he should never have left his last boyfriend just to save him the trouble of dating now.

Tao took a seat across from him. “So the idiots in the cubicles across from my office were back at it again today.”

Suho smiled. “Trying to distract me Tao?” 

Tao waved a hand. “You know you love hearing about it. So Chanyeol and Baekhyun are actually taking a bit of a break from the prank war because they’re competing over who can get the janitor’s number first. You know the new one for our floor?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell, but poor woman,” Suho muttered.

“Man,” Tao corrected, “He’s super tall. Anyway, this morning he was changing the water cooler, and Chanyeol and Baekhyun both decided to make a move at once, just sliding in beside him and trying to help him hold it and he kind of jumped, and Baekhyun tried to catch the cooler, and next thing you know, all three of them are covered in water and the copier is ruined and the janitor has never looked farther from giving someone his number in his life.” Tao pealed off into giggles, his lips tweaking upwards at the corner like his eyes, as Suho buried his face in the desk in horror. “Rough first week!” Tao continued, “They’re making Chanyeol and Baekhyun pay for it, of course, but I think they’re going to have to go back to the prank war after that disaster.” 

 

Suho did not know why he took it upon himself to personally apologize to the new janitor. Vice President III of Advertising is high enough on the chain that he really didn’t have to, but maybe that’s why he did. Maybe it was because he felt personally responsible for Chanyeol and Baekhyun. He hired them, after all. They were kind of like his children and an apology was the least he can do to stop this janitor from filing a sexual harassment complaint. 

The janitor, when he finally located him in the break room, was indeed super tall, blond head high above the telltale navy uniform, and when he turned around, Suho’s carefully crafted apology burst into panic in his head. The man was young, and criminally attractive.

“Ah, hello, are you Kris Wu?” 

“Yes sir.” Oh dear god his voice was deep and perfect.

Suho tried not to stare at his beautifully sultry eyes and strong eyebrows with too much of a gape. “Hello, again, um, I’m Suho Junmyeon, the Vice President on this floor.”

Mr. Wu smiled just the smallest bit and it squeezed Suho’s fluttering heart, “Yes, I know.” 

“Oh! Um. I just want to apologize for the actions of my inappropriate employees, I mean the inappropriate actions of my employees. Chanyeol and Baekhyun are good people, they’re just, well—“ 

“Are they going to come apologize to me for their inappropriate actions?” Mr. Wu asked, and Suho was very taken aback. 

“Pro-probably not,” He muttering, knowing that Chanyeol and Baekhyun were probably too caught up in having to pay for the ruined copier to feel any kind of guilt or shame for a janitor. 

Mr. Wu sighed and turned back to his cart (oh lord those are multiple ear piercings those are) and Suho felt very small, maybe because he finally looked away from Mr. Wu’s face, and earrings, and realized he’d been craning his neck, “Thank you for the apology Mr. Vice President.”

Suho laughed nervously, “You’re welcome.” (Ack) “Um! I mean please don’t mention it, Mr. Wu, I feel personally responsible because I hired them despite their, well, childish and unprofessional behavior. They’re great salesmen, really. I’m sorry they cause so much trouble. Please let someone know if they bother you again.”

“Call me Kris. ‘Mr. Wu’ makes me feel like my Dad.” 

How dramatic and painfully typical for someone who looked like a high-school drop-out. Despite all his nerves, Suho had to make an effort not to roll his eyes. “Ok, Kris.” As if sensing his disdain, Kris turned around and gave him a look. A smolder, if you will. Suho felt his eyes widen before he could stop himself. He became aware of his hands jerking up to cover his mouth, nervous habit, and forced them back down. He hoped his shiny, coiffed hair looked perfect because that was all he had left.

 

Over the next few days, Suho noticed the janitor everywhere. He saw him cleaning the toilets in the morning, which led to a very awkward encounter and a very flushed feeling under the collar for a good hour afterwards. He saw him exit the floor at lunch and enter again an hour later to check water, and in the late afternoon he emptied trash cans. Suho wondered how he’d never noticed this very tall, very attractive man walking around building. 

Tao noticed him staring. “You know, it would probably be bad form to ask for his number after apologizing for your employees doing the same thing.”

“Shhh. I will not do that. I don’t want his number. He’s the vice president. I’m a janitor.” Tao blinked at him. “Um, I mean—“ 

“A modern day Cinderella story, truly,” Tao said drily. “Suit yourself, Suho, but I might jump on that if you don’t.” 

Suho sniffed, “Go ahead. I’m not interested. I have a date a lovely woman from the opera club this Saturday.”

Tao snorted.

Suho stayed late in the evening, long after five o’clock when the rest of the office had emptied. The presentation, a sales proposition to major client, wasn’t going to finish itself, and if it went through he’d have a month from hell keeping the office in line long enough to get the project rolling. Suho packed up to leave and realized that the garbage had been taken out of his office while he’d been sitting in it and he hadn’t even noticed. On his way to the elevators through the darkened cubicles he could hear, muted in the low office and far off, the lonely woosh of a vacuum cleaner, and for a moment he wanted to go tell Kris to go home, but his pulse jumped just imagining finding Kris working away in the dark, and he hit the first floor button and watched the doors close.

 

“He shot me down,” Tao said first thing in the morning a couple days later. 

“Who what?” Suho asked, gaze snapping up from the sandwich on his desk.

Tao looked at the sandwich. “Didn’t you take your lunch break?”

Suho shook his head, trying to chew faster. “I have this report to fill out. There isn’t time.” 

“You work too hard. Anyway, the bastard shot me down.” 

“Who?” 

“Your janitor! I asked him out to dinner yesterday and he shot me down. He was a total asshole about it too. Didn’t even give me a moment of consideration. He even looked bored. So you know what I did?”

 

Suho knew that if he didn’t have time for lunch, he really didn’t have time to go hunting for the janitor to issue an apology either, but he did anyway. 

“Mr. Wu, ok I’m sorry, Kris, I’m really sorry about Tao. He went overboard with the potted plants. I know its ridiculous. I’m making him clean it up himself. Oh you already did? Well, um. I’m so sorry. He can be a vengeful bitch”

“Why do you hire these people?” 

Suho tried not to shrink from the judgment in that beautiful gaze. He almost didn’t blame Tao for getting mad at that stink eye. Almost. His hands drifted northwards towards his face, wringing together close to his chest. “They’re good at what they do. They just have a hard time controlling themselves around attractive people I guess.” 

Kris raised a perfect eyebrow, “They do fine around you.” 

What? Oh. Suho felt his face flush again, hands up against his mouth so fast he almost smacked himself in the nose, “Uh…” Kris smirked at him. His cheeks were about to fry off. “That’s, well.” Suho finally went for a safe but innocent “Thanks,” and scurried back to his office. The nerve of that man! A janitor with piercings and an attitude flirting with him! Or maybe just being a jerk and teasing? Suho wondered if maybe he was judging too hard, kicking himself for reacting with so much panic. Nothing to panic about. Just a flirty minor employee. Just a hot, pierced, tall flirty employee. Tao was certainly unsympathetic. 

 

Workaholic that he was, Suho stayed late most nights. October was busy, preparation for the holiday season well underway. The presentation had, in fact, gone through, and Suho barely had time to eat, much less go home on time. Chanyeol on his own should probably have hired a personal assistant to keep him on task, but that fell to Suho, and so did Baekhyun, Tao, and now the new intern, Sehun. His own assignments often sat till after the doors closed. 

On Friday he left his date, which had been way too fun, and came back to the office. He didn’t bother turning the lights on, just sat at his quiet desk and tapped away, breaking occasionally to text Tao, and then going back to analyzing spreadsheets. 

On nights like these in the wake of unsatisfying dates he often found himself dreaming about The Perfect Match, a dream person with a hold on his fantasies so strong that it had made him drop his last boyfriend. He had looked at what he had and realized he needed someone else, a tall, dark-haired man or a small, faceless woman with big sunglasses and carefully styled hair, mid-length pencil skirt, blazers on both of them. More often than not, this person held the hand of curly-haired child. Mr. or Mrs. Right drove a nice car. He or She was an ambitious young leader in a non-rival company. He stared blankly at the spreadsheet, thinking about a nice house on the edge of a park, two sleek cars in the driveway, children running on the grass, warm hugs, toys on the living rooms floor. He stopped typing, the spreadsheet blurring in front of him. Jesus Christ he was lonely. 

“Why—Oh sorry, are you ok?” Kris asked as Suho shrieked in alarm and dropped his phone off the desk. The light came on just as Suho ducked down onto the floor to try and find it. “Why are you here?” Kris asked, coming around the edge of the desk. Suho sat up quickly, smacked his head against the underside of his sliding keyboard shelf, and yelped loudly.

“Oh, sorry. Scuse me. Ow. Hold on. I need a minute.” 

Kris hovered over him on the floor, leaning way over and still not crowding Suho’s space. Legs for miles. “When did you come in? Why are you in here in the dark?

“Well it’s not dark anymore, is it?”

“No, I guess not. Are you ok?”

“My head hurts.”

“Suho?”

Suho took a moment to decide whether not he should respond to the first name address. It was nearly 10:00 pm. Suho wasn’t even wearing his blazer. What the hell. “Yes, Kris?”

“Why are you here?” 

“Just finished a date.”

“And you came straight here?”

“It was on the way home. I’m a bit of a workaholic. Needed to sit still and think about things.”

Kris huffed and leaned back against the desk, long lines slouched over Suho’s paperwork. Suho swallowed. “Bad date?” Kris asked.

“No, very good date, but I’m not sure about it. She was a lot of fun, great conversation, and very nice, but she’s obviously never done a hard day’s work in her life. Too impulsive. I don’t think I want to continue dating even though I had a lot of fun. She didn’t even notice that we didn’t talk about a second date. I want someone who is more responsible.” Suho blinked. Why on earth was he talking about this. Concussion? He felt his head.

“You’d choose someone responsible over someone fun?”

“Is it too terrible to want someone who is both? Plus, kind and caring, cute, good personality, all the rest. Maybe I’m asking too much. I find so many people I want to go on dates with, and all of them are great, but no one has everything, you know?” Kris surprised him by nodding seriously, eyebrows drawn in intensely, as if he understood the struggle. “It’s always just nice and fun, or just nice and responsible. Or just fun. There was one guy a couple weeks ago who was hilarious and so smart, but so mean to the waitress. There’s always something wrong. I go on so many dates and it never feels like I’m getting anywhere. Why on earth am I still telling you this, is my head ok?”

“You tell me, Mr. Vice President.”

“I was Suho just a minute ago.”

“Would you prefer to be Suho?”

Suho really didn’t think he was in any state of mind to be making such huge decisions. 

“How many dates do you go on? I hear Tao asking about them every few days.”

“A lot. Too many. One or two a week. Stresses me out.” 

Kris gave a low whistle. “Maybe you need a break.” 

Suho stared at Kris’s shoes. Kris’s huge shoes. He was way too tall, really way too tall. Suho should get off the floor. He pulled himself up into his enormous ergonomic desk chair. “Maybe I could use a break,” he said, glancing around at the stacks of paper and littering the desk. 

“Not a break to work,” Kris laughed, and wow that was nice face he made when he laughed, beautiful white teeth and crinkles by his eyes, “A break so you can take nights off and get home earlier.”

“Nah. This project is going to fall through if I don’t give it my all. My staff is great but they’re so all over the place so here I am, every night, after hours…” Kris’s face had sunk back into a smolder, eyes sharp in the bright office, and Suho found himself a little distracted. He shook himself. No need to get starry-eyed over a janitor. No, Suho’s boyfriend or girlfriend when he found him or her was going to have two or three college degrees, a high-paying job, good, un-dyed hair, no piercings, and no goddamn super-model smirk. They’d be respectful, kind, well-spoken. Suho could go on. Kris was still smoldering at him. “What about you? Are you usually here this late?” 

“Nah. Sometimes I’m out by eight or nine. Here at six in the morning. Long hours.” 

Suho shuddered. So not dateable. No time to date. Why was that even in his head? Kris stood up. “Speaking of being here late. I’ve gotta vacuum this office so I can go home.”

“Ok. I’ll go home too. Get some painkiller.”

“Are you ok to drive?”

“Yeah, I’m not dizzy or anything. Just a little sore. I’ll see you Monday.”

Kris stepped forward to leave just as Suho stood up and swayed dangerously. Before he had a chance to reorient himself, Kris had reflexively grabbed him by the shoulders to steady him and Suho tipped heavily right against his chest, pushing him backwards. Gasping, Suho reached around Kris’s back and caught the edge of the desk, inadvertently trapping Kris between it and himself, his slim hips between Suho’s arms, solid and warm. The room spun. 

“Whoa there,” Kris snickered softly as Suho struggled to push himself upright without pressing himself any harder against Kris. Kris graciously steered him upright by him shoulders, made sure he was steady, and then let go, but that beautiful grin was back on his face as he chuckled. “Coming on a bit strong, aren’t you, Mr. Vice Pres.?” Suho was surprised he hadn’t passed out with all the blood rushing into his face. “You sure you’re ok?”

“Yes.” 

“Suit yourself,” that beautiful smirk said with a sharp raised eyebrow. 

Suho left the office in a daze, and didn’t realize until he lay down in bed that Kris’s smile hadn’t yet left his mind. 

 

Monday passed in fast motion. Suho found himself dangerously distracted whenever Kris came into view and Baekhyun had to be dragged away from websites devoted to socks twice. Chanyeol had somehow broken his desk chair. Sehun spent a solid hour making a new one out of phone books and copy paper stacks. It looked like a throne. He refused to de-construct it even when Suho found Chanyeol a new chair. Every time Suho glanced Kris in the distance he had to yank his eyes away. Around lunchtime Tao came in and perched his feet up on Suho’s desk. Suho scowled, “Do you do that on your own desk?” 

“Nah, but this isn’t my desk, so its not that sloppy.” 

“Hm.” 

“You’ve been really distracted and flustered today. I mean, it’s perfectly normal for you to drop a full cup of water or run the microwave too long or knock over someone carrying a full stack of papers, but all in the same morning? You’ve been off your game since I saw you Saturday. I haven’t seen you distracted since you broke up with the ex. Was it the date? Did the date go well?”

Suho coughed, “Sure. It was. It was as good as they ever are.”

Kris chose that moment to stop just across from his office door to wipe down the inside of a window that had gotten smeared up by a client’s child with just an odd edge of that genuine smile from Friday night on his face. 

“Tell me more about her,” Tao pressed. 

“Well she was fun and really sweet. She got a bit too drunk too early though. I had to take her home before ten.”

“Then why are you so excited about her?” Tao asked.

“What makes you think I’m excited? I’m not any more excited than normal.”

“You’re so flustered! C’mon, something happened on Friday.” 

At this moment, Kris turned around and slid a sly smirk over Tao’s head right into Suho’s eyes. Suho pinned his hands under his legs to keep the telltale nervous twitch from giving him away. “I may have hit my head a bit hard on Friday night. Nothing too bad, but that could be part of it.”

Kris just shook his head a little, smirk growing. He winked.

“Suho, you’re bright red now. What is going on?”

“Ugh I don’t know what you’re talking about so please change the topic. I don’t wish to discuss it. Maybe I’m sick. I’m not going on a second date with her. No need to even cancel it this time, and before you ask, I have absolutely no regrets because I am legitimately not interested in her.”

“You’re like a serial dater,” Tao muttered, but thankfully dropped the topic, and Kris’s long long legs carried him away, much to Suho’s relief, but also, somehow, disappointment. What the hell was going on with him? Kris was crass, disrespectful, flirty, probably not very smart or driven judging by his career path and earrings. Suho suddenly understood girls who went for bad boys. 

Thankfully, Tao’s attention had moved on, detailing a theory in which Chanyeol and Baekhyun were actually fucking and the prank war was just a smokescreen. Maybe not every man with earrings was that bad, Suho thought, eyeing Tao’s tasteful studs under his slick haircut. “So, of course, I snooped through the closet’s trashcan afterwards, but no used condoms. The hunt continues.” Or maybe earrings really were a sign of depravity. 

“In other news, Chen is planning to ask that janitor out tomorrow. I hope he gets the same treatment that I did. If not, I’ll be out for blood.”

Suho resolutely ignored the sick flopping of his stomach when he silently agreed with Tao. 

 

Chen really messed it up. Suho came back from the first lunch break he’d taken away from the building in weeks to Tao showing him blurry pictures of a flipped desk, papers and spilt soda everywhere. 

“What on earth happened?”

“Chen flipped his desk over to attract Kris Wu’s attention.”

Suho was already halfway down the hallway to Chen’s office when Tao grabbed him. “Dude, its all clean now. Kris works fast.”

“You made Kris clean it up?” Suho squawked, “That’s terrible! He didn’t say yes, did he?”

“Dude, its not a promposal. Calm down. He didn’t even answer Chen.”

“He did, actually,” Chen said, walking calmly up beside them, shirt still stained with soda, “He said ‘No way in hell,’ really quietly under his breath.” Chen seemed remarkably unfazed, even pleased, and Suho felt like he was missing something. 

“Honestly, I leave you all alone for one lunch break and everything literally falls apart. Is your desk ok?”

“It’s fine.”

“You all have the worst etiquette for asking people out. You can’t do it in a way that causes problems for people, especially not the person you’re asking out. Don’t you know anything?”

“Ah yes. You ask out two people a week. You would know.” 

Suho levelled Chen with the deadliest glare he could muster. Chen’s feline lips curled wickedly upwards. 

“I’m going to go find Kris and apologize for your bad behavior since I know you won’t do it.”

“Suit yourself. I will not apologize for a good time.” 

Suho was disgusted.

 

Suho hunted down the janitor again. He’d barely opened his mouth when Kris said, “Can you keep your horny employees off me? My job is hard enough without people intentionally fucking up their offices just so I’ll show up.”

Suho flinched, not expecting the swearing in the workplace, though he wasn’t sure how janitors fit into office courtesy. “I’m sorry, I’ll talk to Chen. It’s really… I don’t even know what’s going on with them these days. I didn’t even know Chen was interested in men.” 

Kris turned around, towering over him. “He isn’t! He thinks its funny that people keep pulling stunts to ask me out. He thinks fucking with me is hilarious because I have to clean it up at the end. All I want to do is finish my work and get home every day but all your trained monkeys don’t give a shit.” Suho gasped, which only spurred on Kris’s scoffing. “Its cute that you always feel the need to come apologize, but you don’t care either. I’m just the fucking janitor. Go back and sit in the fucking office your Daddy paid for that I clean after you’ve gone home.” 

Suho sputtered, “That my daddy—my office—what would you know? I’ve worked hard my whole life for that office and so have the rest of us. I’m sorry your job sucks so much. Maybe you take all the pranks in the spirit in which they’re intended, huh? They’re friendly!”

“The spirit?” Kris stood gaping. “Suho, I’m a janitor. I’m not an idiot. None of you fuckers want to be friends with me. You all think you’re smart as hell and I’m the fucking idiot that didn’t go to college and has to work a shit job for the rest of his life, but you don’t know shit about it. You don’t know shit about working hard.”

Suho felt like either slapping him or crying. He felt his hand up against his mouth and yanked it away quickly. “Who do you think you are? Haven’t worked hard? I’m the Vice President!”

Kris’s fury fell off his face, replaced with carefully calculated indifference. “Of course, VP Suho. Thanks for the reminder. I’ll shut up.”

“No. That’s not—Kris, please. I just meant that I had to work hard to get here. I’m not trying to—“

“To throw around your authority? No that’s fine. You don’t need to. I know you can fire me.”

Suho could definitely feel the tears fighting his eyelids. “Kris, I’m not going to do anything like that. Not after, not with—in the office on Friday night. We’re at least friends, right?”

“You’re so fucking naïve. Jesus Christ. I flirt with everyone. You wouldn’t know real attraction if it tried to drown you, Mr. Two-dates-a-week-because-he’s-waiting-for-prince-fucking-charming. The way you toy with people like you’re trying on clothes is pathetic.”

Suho ran. Not his proudest moment. Turned tail and fled. He locked himself in the twentieth story’s tertiary men’s restroom hidden back behind the shelving units for a good twenty minutes trying to turn back into the company Vice President III he thought he was. It did no good. That night he gave himself six hours of overtime and left well after the vacuum had faded out. Nobody emptied his trash can. The memory of Kris’s furious sneer as he used their very personal conversation against him completely overtook the memory of his smile.

 

Life moved on. The project continued at an increasingly panicked pace. Even Sehun, who spent most afternoons on his phone, had been spotting scribbling on paperwork and fetching coffee. Suho’s trash can emptied itself every evening. He had yet to catch Kris in the act, which was good, because seeing Kris up close could not be good for his personal wellbeing. He cancelled all future dates and didn’t bother asking anyone else out. 

“What happened?” Tao asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” He definitely didn’t want to tell Tao that he’d bared his loneliness and desires to his ill-chosen crush, who unflinchingly used them to hurt him. 

“Suho, you’re worrying me. It’s not like you to not date people. It’s kind of your thing.”

“It occurred to me that I might not be going about it the right way. If I’m just going to keep getting disappointed, I should stop asking everyone out and just ask the rare people that I’m really impressed with.”

Tao rolled his eyes, “And how will you know who that is? You’re really impressed with most people when you meet them, and its been three weeks.”

“I haven’t been out a lot. Haven’t met a lot of new people recently.”

“Yeah. What is up with that?”

“Its November. I’m busy.”

“Suho…”

Suho refused to tell him that he often spent his overtime hours with his head on his office desk, flicking a miniature newton’s cradle into motion every couple minutes, imagining Prince Fucking Charming, as Kris phrased it.

More often than not these days, Prince Charming now had casually messy dyed blonde hair, and a thin, tall frame. More often than not, he was man with a killer smirk, and more often than not, he was angry. The nice cars and business suits were suspiciously absent. Suho felt betrayed. 

 

Tao found a potential prince charming in early November and drove Suho to the blind date. Suho sat down alone at the small table in the perfect restaurant and waited, tapping his phone against his palm and gazing around at the other posh dates around him, the fancy business dinners, a charming family of three. His heart felt very small. He wondered if he should leave, not sure how Tao ever convinced him to do this when he was so averse to dating at them moment. His stomach rolled. The date arrived. 

Suho stood quickly, and, amazingly, did not bump the table. “Hello,” the man said, “I’m Seunghyun Choi.” Suho felt his heart give a small jerk, stomach stilling. Tall, dark hair, easy smile. 

He learned many things about Seunghyun in the next twenty minutes between ordering a very nice bottle of wine and drinking just one glass as the appetizers arrived. Seunghyun was rapidly climbing the ranks towards the executive wing of a music production company, he had the perfect ease of a gentleman, he drove a BMW, and he sometimes rapped under the stage name T.O.P. Suho felt weightless. He was prince charming, but better, prince charming with everything Suho would never have been able to imagine on his own. For the first time, he worried less about if he should ask for a second date, and more worried about if Seunghyun would even want one. 

Suho had let his very handsome date order for him, since he knew the restaurant, and when the food arrived, he nearly passed out. Rib eye steak cooked to perfection with a perfect red wine sauce. The vegetables melted in his mouth as Seunghyun regaled him with tales of a rapper trying to get his mixed tape into the company through almost nefarious means. 

“After the incident with the hijacked intercom system we got a restraining order on him, of course. We can’t have people breaking into the offices. However, one of the producers, Jiyong, found his old tape shoved in the bathroom ceiling tiles one day, and just for fun, gave it a listen. Fell in love with it.” Suho was riveted by the way Seunghyun smiled, and suddenly, Kris’s smile flashed into his mind’s eye, clearer than it had been in weeks. Suho forcibly shut it down. Snapped back into the conversation. 

“The fallout was enormous. Everyone was down in the lobby. Half the company is yelling at the security to keep him out when he shows up, and half of them are waving copies of the mixed tape that they’ve found or made, and praising it like street-corner preachers, like he’s the second coming of Christ. Jiyong won’t back down, and he’s fucking terri—oh ‘scuse my language—he’s fucking terrifying when he wants to be.”

Suho laughed out loud.

“And then to make matters that much worse, the guy walks in the door with what looks like his entire extended family, and they’re waving signs and banners of their own because they’re planning on throwing a party right there in the middle of the studios, and as the president is about to have them thrown out, Jiyong just walks into the middle of fray with his arms out like Moses parting the Red Sea, embraces this rapper, and immediately calls catering to help them with their party. The president fainted.

“Of course, the next day, after nearly being fired, which is amazing since Jiyong could probably try to burn down the building and not get fired—he’s just that good—he actually had to find a way to work with the guy. It was impossible. The album fizzled out just two months later and that was that.” Seunghyun took another smooth sip of wine and watched Suho giggle over the rim, eyes crinkled affectionately. “I’m free next Friday too. Same time, Metropolitan Opera for Aida? Drinks out on the town afterwards?”

Suho gasped, “Yes!”

 

“Where did you find him,” Suho asked Tao the next day, “And how? When? How did you know?” 

“I know your perfect type when I see him, Suho, I’ve heard you describe him often enough. I know one thing for sure. He is nothing like the ex.” 

Suho ignored things he preferred not to think about. “Tao he’s taking me to the Opera. He’s a rapper! How did he know?”

“Suho, I’m happy for you. When’s the wedding?”

“The June after next, probably.” 

“Jesus Christ I was kidding Suho.” 

“How did you find him?”

“I had sex with one of his friends. Some tiny but fierce producer that called himself GD. It was beautiful and terrifying. Seunghyun stopped by the next morning right after round two to drop off a really nice take-out breakfast for both of us. As soon as I got a whiff of his great taste in breakfast foods I struck up a conversation and got him interested in you. Scheduled the date right there while wearing nothing but some stranger’s spare t-shirt and last night’s dirty boxers. You owe me a lot, Suho, and I expect to be your best man.” 

He walked away, leaving Suho to twitch fitfully over his coffee as he tried to wipe that image from his mind.

 

Seunghyun texted him around 5:30 pm on Monday, the perfect time to text, just after work lets out but before dinner starts. Unfortunately, Suho was still in the office, metaphorically ripping apart a proposal by Chanyeol about theming their next client presentation to kittens, fingers so busy on the keys that they were starting to go a little numb. He paused to answer his phone, appreciating the late, Monday-after text. Well-timed after a weekend of space. Considerate. 

They established an easy back-and forth. Two-minute intervals between texts. The conversation broke frequently since they were both busy men, but it kept Suho in a giggly, productive mood for the better part of three hours until 8:00 pm passed and his typing finally slowed down enough for him to log out of his email and pack up to leave the office, phone still in hand. 

Halfway to the elevator, he froze. There, dwarfed the big conference room table, a little girl sat curled in a chair, skin ghostly in the office light. He opened the door slowly, “Hello sweetie, what’s going on in here?” 

She answered by holding up several sheets of plain printer paper and a couple ball-point pens. “I’m drawing.” The papers were covered by black and blue flowers and hearts, two-dimensional scrawls of cheap ink. A couple humanoid figures stood out on one with a typical house in the background.

“Wow! You’ve been busy. How long have you been in here?”

She sighed dramatically, “A really long time. I want to go home, but Daddy’s not done working yet.”

“Who’s your Daddy?”

“Daddy! He’s somewhere around here. He cleans things.”

That would have to be Kris. Kris has a daughter. Kris can’t be much older than Suho, twenty-four at the oldest. This girl must be around six or seven. No wonder he’s gotten stuck in this job. There’s no way he could have gone to college with a daughter that young. 

And then things made a lot less sense, because reconciling Kris, the jerk who easily and cruelly stabbed his heart out, with Kris, the father of a child, didn’t really work in his head. 

“Would you like to draw with me?” She asked.

Suho stalled, really not wanting to run into Kris and not wanting to abandon the conversation waiting on his phone. “Um, its so late… I should get home.” 

She wilted. 

“Ok, I can stay and draw with you for a bit.”

“Really?!”

“Yes, of course. That looks like fun.”

He rushed around to her side of the table, internally kicking himself for caving. Up close, she looked scarily thin, straight black hair tangled and dirty, clothes threadbare and ugly. There was something painful squeezing inside his ribs. “What’s your name?”

“Princess Kaitlyn.”

“Ok Princess Kaitlyn.” His phone vibrated. With effort, he ignored it.

They drew for a while, more blue and black flowers filling up thin white sheets of paper. She made a brave attempt at a penguin, and then another humanoid figure. “This is a doll,” she said, “I want it for Christmas.”

“That’s not for another month and a half.”

“I sent my letter to Santa. All the girls at school have this doll too. She’s so pretty. I want the one with curly blonde hair and brown eyes. Daddy says I should get the one that looks like me, but I don’t want that one.”

“Really?” Suho said weakly, remembering his own sisters and their look-alike dolls, “But I bet that one is beautiful.”

“Its not. This one is,” she said, scowling, pointing at the blue ink scrawl. 

Suho blathered good-naturedly about dolls for a while, trying to distract her. She seemed very confused that Suho had owned dolls when he was younger. 

“But you’re a boy.”

“I had sisters.”

“So?”

“I liked dolls.”

“You shouldn’t though. You’re a boy.”

“Boys can like dolls.”

“No they can’t.”

Suho didn’t know what to say to this. Arguments on gender with six-year-olds were not his rhetorical forte. They drew quietly for a bit. 

Suho looked at her drawing just in time to recognize something that looked suspiciously like a sandwich before she started crying abruptly, “I’m so hungry! I want to go home!”

“Ah! What’s wrong? Oh, you just told me. I mean, Sweetie, don’t cry. Please don’t cry. It’s nearly 9:00. You’ll be able to go home soon.”

“I’m so hungry!”

Suho made a small noise of distress and pulled her into a hug. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.”

“There’s nothing wrong with crying. Even Daddy cries sometimes.”

Suho felt an awful urge to laugh at that horribly-timed, sensitive information about horrible, cold Kris, and then felt the equally terrible urge to start crying along with her. His ribcage just hurt too much. She hugged him back, not able to reach all the way around his torso with her short arms, wiping her dirty face on his white shirt. She smelled like cheap food and city fumes. 

Kris walked in looking thunderous. 

Suho jumped to speak up before Kris could make any weird assumptions or get too mad. “I’m sorry! She looked so lonely. She started crying. Please help.”

“Daddy!”

“Ella, what’s wrong?” He rushed forward and pulled her quickly out of Suho’s arms. 

“Ella?” Suho asked.

“Ella, did you tell him your name is Princess Kaitlyn?” 

She nodded miserably. “My tummy hurts.” 

“Ok. Ok. You haven’t eaten yet, have you?”

“No!” she wailed.

Kris clutched her tightly, taking a deep breath against her hair. Suho wondered if he was going to do that weird nervous thing between laughing and sobbing or just skip that and throw up all over the table.

“Just another fifteen minutes, princess. I’ve got the last run-through to do.”

“Daddy, I’m so tired. I want to go home.”

“Only fifteen more minutes, I promise. Suho will take care of you until then. Please stop crying. I promise I’ll be fast. We can go home soon.” 

He looked challengingly down at the determinedly stoic Suho, who realized too late that he had his hands in front of his face again, which he yanked down. Curse his stupidly obvious and awkward nervous tick. “Do you want to keep drawing?” He asked quietly. 

“I want to eat supper,” she said. 

“I can get you something from the vending machine.” 

“You can? I want Snickers!” 

“No sugar,” Kris said. 

“No sugar,” Suho agreed.

Twenty-five minutes later, they left the building together, Ella asleep in Kris’s arms, even as he struggled a little under her weight. “She’s getting a little too big for this.” 

“She’s so sweet.” 

“She can be a little harsh when she wants something though. She can handle it when you say no, even if she acts like she can’t.”

“You know about the Snickers, don’t you?” 

“I heard her squeal. That can only mean one thing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not mad. I said no. Dad duty fulfilled. Thank you for treating her. I don’t get to do it very often.” 

“No problem,” Suho said quietly, “Why was she at the office anyway?” 

“Usually she goes to daycare until about six, and then she goes back to the apartment, but there was a shooting in the area this afternoon, so I ran to the daycare during my dinner break and brought her here. Didn’t want her going home alone.”

“Wasn’t there someone to stay with her at home?”

Kris’s lips pursed together. “No.” 

Suho didn’t push it, but he did drive Kris and Ella home, insisting, even though Kris wanted to take the subway. “It’s late. This’ll be faster and easier. And safer,” he added when Kris looked like he was on the verge of an angry protest. Kris shut his mouth and buckled Ella into the backseat before climbing into the front, all angry tension, eyes focused up and out the window. Within minutes he was fast asleep. 

Suho dropped them off in front of a dark apartment complex that looked like it might fall apart at any second, and stayed long enough to see them make it in the door, Kris still awkwardly maneuvering with the sleeping girl in his arms, and then sped away out of the neighborhood, worried about the safety of his lovely Porsche. There were still some police cars and a crowd of onlookers surrounding a building only a couple blocks away. 

For some reason, Suho felt sick to his stomach all the way to his beautiful uptown apartment beside streets that smelled too clean and were lit too well. He only remembered to text Seunghyun back just before bed with a quick explanation and apology. Seunghyun sent him back a gentle, pleasant goodnight, and it eased the ache in his stomach a little, but it was another few hours before sleep finally caught up to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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	2. Chapter 2

Suho found Kris the next day cleaning the office wall was all windows overlooking the street far below. “How old is Ella?” 

“Who wants to know,” Kris asked, smirking at his own joke, not sparing a glance at Suho.

“I do. How old is she?”

Kris silently wiped down the window. Suho was about to leave when “She turned seven a couple months ago.” 

“She’s lovely. You should bring her by in the evenings more often. I’d be happy to babysit her. Get her dinner a couple times. I love kids.”

Kris stopped wiping the window. “I don’t want charity.”

“I really don’t feel like giving you charity. Ella is the most precious child I’ve ever met and I want to be her fairy godmother. Please let me.” 

Kris snorted and moved to the next window. Suho didn’t leave. 

“The doll she wants for Christmas. That’s American Girl, isn’t it. How are you going to afford it?” 

Kris turned around with the spray bottle raised like he was about to hit him. Suho didn’t flinch. “I can be Santa.” 

Kris blinked at him for a second with a kind of desperation in his eyes, then shook his head. “No, that’s too important. That’s my gift to give.” Suho deflated a little. “But,” Kris continued, sounding a little strangled, “If you’re serious about babysitting her some evenings, I think she’d enjoy that.”

“Which evenings?”

“What?”

“Which days of the week would you prefer that I babysit her?”

Kris had forgotten all about the windows, but he still didn’t meet Suho’s eyes. “Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are usually the longest evenings for me. Could you do those?”

“I can do Mondays and Wednesdays, but I tend to go out of Fridays so maybe not then.”

Kris snorted, “Still picking up every rich, good-looking stranger you meet?”

“Just one now,” Suho snapped, “the Prince Charming you were so sure I wouldn’t find.” It was a bit early to be saying such bold things, but Suho wanted the drama.

“That was fast,” Kris muttered. He looked perturbed.

“So I’ll meet Ella here at 5:30 tomorrow or should I go pick her up too?” 

Kris met his eyes for the first time, “Don’t you have work to do in the evenings? You’re in here every night.”

“I’ll manage. Would you like me to pick her up?” 

Kris looked a little lost. “They don’t… They don’t let strange men pick up children. I need to fill out a whole form for that. I’ll get her tomorrow and then fill out the form for next week.”

Suho nodded thoughtfully, “In that case I’ll make sure to get you dinner before-hand since you won’t have time otherwise.” He turned to walk away.

“What? Suho, wait just a second. I just fucking said I don’t fucking want charity.” 

“It’s not charity, Kris. Its just consideration for making you go out of your way.”

“Don’t buy me dinner.”

“Not up to you.”

“I won’t eat it.”

“What a waste.”

“Fuck you, Suho.” 

Xiumin, the office I.T. assistant, dropped a whole stack of files, which popped one side of his suspenders off, and stared open-mouthed between the two. Suho turned and gazed evenly at Kris. “Fine. To bed without dinner for you then.” 

Kris threw the bottle at him and Suho just barely smacked it out of the way. Xiumin squeaked and backed up few steps. Suho walked off with his head held high. He did feel a little like a jerk, and it felt great. 

 

When Kris dropped Ella off at Suho’s office, he had just finished texted Seunghyun, so it took a bit of effort to bring himself back to the present. He wasn’t the only one a little starry eyed. Ella ran immediately over to the double wall of windows and stared out over the city, small hands and face pressed up against the glass. “Daddy, where’s our apartment?” 

“That’s on the other side of the building. You can’t see it from in here.” He walked over and crouched down next to her, pointing at things out the window and murmuring in a low voice as Suho nervously got ready to go. Honestly, he could face a hundred dates without batting an eyelash, but dinner with a seven-year-old was setting off his nerves. Pathetic. 

He caught Tao staring through the open doorway and waved him off impatiently with a quiet, “I’ll tell you later.” 

Ella was a lot more patient when she wasn’t tired and hungry. She swung her feet around on the subway, humming and staring at people. 

“Where are we going?” 

“My favorite restaurant. It’s near central park.”

“How do you get your hair to stay that way?”

“What?” Suho touched the standard business up-do, “Um, I just use hair product, like mousse and things like that. Spray sometimes.”

“Could you do my hair? I try to do it sometimes because girls look so pretty with their hair done up but I can’t see the back of my head because I don’t have the right mirrors so it always looks weird and tangled and then Daddy has to help comb my hair out, and that hurts, so could you try it sometime? I ask Daddy to but he’s bad at it and he’s not there in the mornings and there’s no point in doing it at night.”

“Is it just you and him? Do you have any siblings or, um, other parents?”

“Nope, just me and him. Good thing, too. I don’t think my mom would have fit in our apartment. There’s barely room for him. He hits his head on the door frames sometimes. Its funny unless he really gets hurt, which happened one time.”

Suho stomped down the odd sick swooping in his stomach again. “How about we go get your hair done before dinner so you can look nice and pretty.”

“Really? We could do that? Yes, yes yes please please please could I get my hair done? Like with a barber?”

“Hair salon, actually.” 

“Can I get it dyed blond like Daddy’s?” 

“Um, no, not without his permission.”

“Call and ask him!”

“He’s working! You ask him later, and if he says yes, I’ll take you out again to get it done.”

She squealed and bounced up and down. People stared. 

The hair salon loved her. One woman washed her face and gave her a free scrunchie. She would not stop looking at her braided crown in mirrors and windows afterwards, but Suho guessed that would happen and wasn’t too put off. He did ask for a table away from too many mirrors and windows at the restaurant though, quietly. It was a bustling family place, nice enough to have fantastic food, but not so nice as to be something completely new for Ella. She never stopped staring, forgetting about her hair to stare wide-eyed at everything right down to the napkin dispenser on the table and the waitress’s apron. 

“Do you get out to eat much?” Suho asked.

She shook her head, “Sometimes when Daddy saves up we go out to McDonald’s, but most of the time I make dinner myself!” She bounced up and down proudly. 

“Wow,” he said, “but you’re seven.” 

She giggled and wrapped her tattered coat around her shoulders from where it lay looking very defeated against the back of the chair. Suho worried that it might rip apart at any moment. By the end of the meal, they had finally discovered some things in common to talk about. They both loved Miyazaki movies, though Ella had only ever seen Kiki’s Delivery Service at school, and her friend had shown her pictures of Castle in the Sky. Ella was going to live on a castle in the sky some day. She’d take care of all the animals. 

Suho felt kind of dazed when he walked her back into the building late at night. They followed the sound of the vacuum up the stairs. 

Kris turned around when they walked in, switched off the vacuum, and met Ella halfway, sinking to his knees and pulling her into a hug. “Princess Kaitlyn, your hair looks so beautiful.”

“I know. He took me to a salon because I asked him to do my hair but he didn’t know how.”

“This is true,” Suho said.

“Did you eat?”

“Yeah. I had spaghetti. It was soooooooo tasty.” 

“Is your homework done?”

“Yeah. I did it before you came and got me.”

“Did you have fun?”

“Yeah. I’m sleepy.”

“We can go home soon. I’m nearly done.” 

Kris stood up with Ella in his arms, and turned to Suho, who resolutely held up a carry-out box. “Leftovers.” He stated. He didn’t mention that he had intentionally not eaten most of his meal just so he could bring it back to Kris, but when Kris took it and felt how heavy it was, he seemed to get it. 

“I’m sorry for throwing that bottle at you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Daddy,” Ella giggled, “You shouldn’t throw things at people. They tell me that in school all the time. Maybe you should go to school with me. Parents visit their kids at lunch sometimes. Could you do that?”

“Hah. Maybe someday if I ever have a day off.” 

“Ok.” 

He hugged her tightly for a moment, and then handed her off to Suho so he could finish. Suho drove them both home again that night, and Kris fell asleep in the passenger side yet again. Before he walked into his apartment he turned and said, “Suho, thank you,” and Suho was too overwhelmed to do anything but giggle and watch Ella and Kris disappear through the heavy front door. 

 

Tao wanted to know everything. 

“There’s not much to say,” Suho said, “I met his daughter on Monday and she was super sweet so I asked to take her out to dinner every once in a while. You know I love kids.”

“It’s kind of creepy.”

“What?! No it isn’t! I’m just… Tao, why do you have to ruin everything.”

Tao laughed, “It’s you, Suho. I don’t actually think you’re being creepy, but if it was anyone else, I might.”

Suho tried not to think about the fact that Kris wouldn’t look at him or acknowledge him when he said hello. Maybe Kris thought he was creepy. Suho put his head on his desk. 

“Oh please, Suho, calm down.” Tao tapped on the desk for a moment and Suho could tell he was trying to figure out how to distract him this time. “Aren’t we ahead of schedule?”

Suho’s head came up off the desk immediately. “Technically, yes. We have several meetings within the next two weeks that are pretty much prepared for, and the workshop planning is going well. Chanyeol managed to buckle down long enough yesterday to draw up a brilliant script. All the paperwork went in ahead of schedule, but when it gets down to crunch time and we have to cinch the deal you know its all going to get way behind. People get stressed and stop working. We need to get as far ahead as possible or we’re not going to make it. Oh my god, we’re not going to make it and the company will shut us down and I'll never have a job this good again.”

“Suho! Um! Yesterday I saw Chanyeol and Baekhyun go into the second floor bathroom together and I think they didn’t come out. I seriously think something’s up. I mean, I didn’t actually stay to find out, but I didn’t notice either of them around again for while.”

“Tao, if they’re together, why the hell would they hide it?”

Tao hadn’t thought of that. 

“Because… well fine if you don’t want to hear my theories maybe this’ll interest you. Sehun wants to ask Kris out and we’re expecting theatrics.”

“NO!”

 

Suho finally got there on time to order the miscreant to clean up his own mess. He stayed late with Sehun just to make sure he got every single spilled company pen out from under every piece of furniture in the office, and when he saw Kris smirking as he emptied trash cans he decided it was definitely worth the extra hour, even though he had to listen to a constant stream of complaints coming from under the desks. 

 

Seunghyun picked up an antsy Suho at his apartment at 5:30 on Friday looking like something straight out of a Bond movie. Slicked back hair and slim slacks under a black wool coat that was all smooth edges. His heart-melting dark eyes and warm skin tone stood out against the season’s first snowfall. Suho nearly fell down the front steps when he smiled and Seunghyun raised a perfect eyebrow, which emphasized his strong cheekbones. Suho couldn’t breath. A leisurely candlelit dinner prefaced a short walk to the Metropolitan Opera with its sloping marble staircases and stunningly tall, glass-fronted lobby. 

Seunghyun had bought them seats in a box, not the first box that Suho had found himself in, especially when he was with his ex, who was a singer and another opera lover, but he would never get tired of this room, all dark wood and red velvet with the ceiling glowing gold above them and a glass of champagne in his hand. Seunghyun easily discussed the virtues of Wagner and Bizet until the curtain went up on an entire Egyptian temple. 

When the march of Aida began, Suho gripped the armrests to try to steady his breathing, and realized he had grabbed Seunghyun’s hand on accident. Seunghyun chuckled lowly under the blasting march and turned his palm into Suho’s. Suho figured he’d be in serious danger of passing out if the moment got any more perfect. 

It did. As Aida and Radamés romantically suffocated to death sealed in a temple vault, singing lovingly, Suho looked over at Seunghyun to discover that he was not the only one with a tissue pressed to his face. Still giggling and wiping away tears they walked hand in hand out into the night to find a bar. 

“You’ll never guess what I did this week,” Suho said a couple beers in.

“What did you do?” Seunghyun asked good-naturedly. 

“I took a seven-year-old girl on a date.”

Seunghyun laughed and Suho smiled, pleased, eyes dragging across the beautiful face in front of him. Seunghyun’s coat and suit jacket were off, sleeves rolled up over thick forearms, but his tie still sat snug against his collar. So put together.

“Suho,” Seunghyun laughed, obviously in the middle of trying to get his attention.

“Oh, sorry, what?”

“I asked why you took a seven-year-old girl on a date? What’s she got that I don’t?” He had a teasing side-eyed smile on, and Suho had trouble focusing. 

“Oh she’s precious. Her name is Ella and she’s the daughter of the janitor in our building. He had her around after hours the other day because he didn’t want her home alone, and I drew pictures with her for an hour. She’s perfect. So sassy. I took her out to dinner on Wednesday. Oh, Seunghyun, I think I’m too young to be in love but I’m falling anyway. What’ll I do, though? Her daddy hates me. How do you win someone that’s out of your reach?” The flirting questions were a bit of a stretch, especially when they were a little over the line of sober, but Suho hoped he got it, and when he finally turned from his glass to look, Seunghyun was only a foot away, dark eyes affectionate. Suho couldn’t stop his helpless grin.

“Well,” Seunghyun said, “to win someone over you would have to make that person fall head over heels for you.”

“How?” Suho breathed.

“It wouldn’t be hard. Just smile as much as you can, yeah, just like that. Make great conversation, get flustered sometimes and giggle like you do, tell funny stories about your friends at work, keep dressing like that, keep worrying about people passing on the street for no discernable reason, laugh at that person’s dumb jokes, talk about making friends with adorable children…” he trailed off and they sat quietly in the dim bar for a few seconds, gazes locked. “Do you kiss on the second date, Suho?”

“Not usually,” he said, “but I make exceptions.”

“Let me walk you home.”

“Ok.”

Fifteen feet from the front door of the apartment building Seunghyun pulled Suho into a dark nook between two buildings, not totally hidden, but out of the way of passerby and the gaze of the doorman, and pulled him in with one gloved hand low on his waist and the other resting at the nape of his neck, thumb brushing along his cheek. He kissed him slow and long, soft lips brushing full and heavy over his own. Suho hung onto the lapels of his wool coat, helpless again, and kissed back in the way that makes breathing seem unnecessary. 

When Seunghyun finally pulled away and rested their foreheads together, Suho was gasping quietly. “Would you be available next Saturday, Suho?” he asked.

“I love the way you say my name.”

Seunghyun chuckled and ducked down for another kiss. “Suho, is that a yes?”

“Yes.”

“How does the Metropolitan Museum of Art sound? Start hitting all the Mets in the city.”

“I’ve never been.”

“Well! We’ll have to fix that. Would you prefer mid-morning or after lunch?”

“Mid-morning.”

“I’ll pick you up here at 10:00.”

“Thank you,” Suho whispered, “Ah—I mean ok that sounds good.”

Seunghyun kissed him again, “Goodnight, Suho. Keep in touch.”

“Of course.”

Seunghyun waited to leave until Suho entered the building, and Suho gave in to girlish squealing in the elevator. 

 

“He’s going to kill me, Tao. I’ll be dead by the end of the next date. I can’t breath when he looks at me and I’m going to asphyxiate.”

Baekhyun cut in, “I can’t believe I’m the one telling you this, but you really need to focus on your work right now. The deadline is two hours away.”

“Oh hush. If you’d done this yourself a week ago you wouldn’t have to rely on me now so you’re going to have to put up with Tao and I doing boy talk while I work at my own pace.”

Tao said, “How do you multitask like that? You’ve been gushing for three minutes now and you haven’t slowed down writing that cover letter at all. You haven’t even made any typos.”

“There’s a reason I’m in charge of all of you, you know. I’m actually qualified for this position.” 

“Chanyeol, you’re standing on my toes,” Baekhyun snapped.

“Am I?” Chanyeol said, watching over Xiumin’s shoulder, who was leaning against the back of Tao’s chair. He didn’t move.

“When did you all get here?” Suho asked, “We were having a private conversation.”

“A private conversation over Baekhyun’s fuck-up, though,” Sehun said ("language, Sehun"), “and Chen said I should come watch you in action. I’ve never seen you work before.”

“He’s a machine,” Tao agreed.

Suho smiled, pleased, the cover letter still rolling away under his fingertips, the entire thing already scripted in his head. 

“He could probably run this entire branch of the company on his own if he needed to,” Baekhyun said, “That’s why we goof off so much, because we know he can handle things if we fuck up.”

Suho actually did stop typing at that and turned around. “No swearing in the office. And is that why? Is that really why? Do you know how exhausted I get when I pick up the slack during crush weeks? There’s a reason you can’t reach me afterwards, and its not because I’m ignoring you like you people suspect, its because I usually sleep for eighteen hours straight and require actual medical attention to help with the exhaustion. I get delirious.”

“Oh, shit,” Baekhyun said.

“Language! Technically, yes, I can keep myself awake for three or four days straight and work functionally through all of them, but I’m pretty sure I chop years off my lifespan to do it.” 

“Ok, jeez, yikes, I’m sorry. I’ll be a lot more careful from now on. You could just tell us that, you know. And please get back to the letter, the deadline is in two hours.”

“I know. We’ll make it.”

“Is this the make-it or break-it scene that all the corporate dramas promised me?” asked the familiar deep voice of a certain janitor. Suho dropped a whole half a sentence and had to back up. Tao jumped and sat up straighter. Suho felt his face turning red. He kept his eyes resolutely on the screen. 

Chanyeol had also noticed, and decided to stir things around for observation. “Hey Kris, come watch Suho pull the world’s fastest, most awesome cover letter out of his ass ("Language! All of you!") while gushing about his date on Friday at the same time. It’s a circus trick.”

Tao jumped back in, “So you were about to tell me about something he said in the bar.”

“It’s, ah, it’s, never mind. I mean, I forgot.” Suho had been at about the part of the story where Ella had been a part of the conversation, and he wasn’t sure he wanted Kris to know that.

“You forgot what he said.”

“No I forgot what I was telling you.”

“How do you know that you didn’t forget what he said when you don’t know what it is you did or didn’t forget.” 

“We’ll talk about it later, Tao!”

“Did he kiss you, Suho?”

“Ahh! Yes! Happy?”

“Holy shit you let him kiss you? ("Stop swearing! Et tu, Tao?") It’s only the second date!”

“Is this the prince charming you mentioned?” Kris asked, and Suho accidentally rewrote the last half the sentence he had just written.

“Whoa,” Tao muttered, “well, Suho, I happen to remember what you were saying. You were talking about flirting with him in the bar by talking about how Kris’s daughter is so sweet that you might be in love but she’s out of reach because her Dad hates you. You were using that to subtly ask Seunghyun how you to win him over because you think he’s out of your reach. And how did he respond?”

Suho felt the sharp sting of betrayal. He realized slowly that his hands were sitting very still on the keys. Kris leaned slowly down past the back of his chair to bring his gaze level with the side of Suho’s face. “Her Dad hates you, huh? What, exactly, did you say about the daughter I trusted you with to a man you barely know?”

“I’m leaving,” Chanyeol said. 

Suho turned to Tao, away from Kris, not even attempting his normal death glare, but just hoping that whatever blank expression on his face was enough. It must have been, because Tao’s expression went from smug to distressed very quickly.

Baekhyun butted in over the sounds of Sehun and Xiumin fleeing, “I really hate to get involved with this, I really do, but can you please finish the fucking cover letter, because its due in two hours.” 

“Kris, can I talk to you about this after I finish writing Baekhyun’s cover letter and washing his mouth out? 

“Would you mind meeting my eyes first? I’ve been waiting here for a bit.” 

Suho turned his head easily to meet Kris’s eyes, close as they were. “Ok, I’m a little embarrassed, but I’m not guilty. There’s no need to act like I’ve done something wrong because I haven’t.”

Kris stood up, something suspiciously like an eye roll following the movement towards the ceiling, and stalked off with his spray bottle.

“I’m sorry,” Tao said quietly.

“That was nothing short of mean, Tao. I don’t know why you think getting your friends into uncomfortable situations is amusing. Go away so I can finish this.”

Kris was angry. After the cover letter and assorted documents were finished and submitted, Suho found him wiping down the mirrors in the bathroom. “You know, maybe I just won’t give you that form that lets her you pick her up from school.”

“We were talking about our weeks. I said I went out to dinner with a seven-year-old girl I met at work, that she was perfect and sassy, and then I said I might be absolutely in love with her, you know, exaggerating, and that she was unattainable because I thought her Dad hated me,” Suho hoped he’d refute that, just for Suho’s satisfaction, but Kris didn’t look like he was going to, “and I asked him how to woo someone unattainable, meaning it to mean him because he’s perfect. There it is. That was the conversation. I don’t think there’s a problem.”

“Suho, I don’t like you.” 

Suho could feel his hands sneaking nervously up towards his face so he grabbed his own sleeves. 

“I don’t like you because you’re a naïve, pompous, entitled, judgmental, clumsy idiot—“ hurt rose painfully in Suho’s throat, “—and I don’t like having you around my daughter. I hate it. I hate it even more when I know you’re out there with some man using the fact that you have dinner with the poor, unfortunate child of someone less fortunate than you to make yourself look better.”

“Kris, I would never!” 

“That’s what you did whether you meant to or not. And ‘oh, her evil old Dad hates me, how tragic’, doesn’t give me any incentive to feel affectionately towards you either. Though you’re right, I do hate you.”

“Kris, that’s not fair. You know that’s not fair,” Suho said, voice raising. 

“Get out. I’m working.”

Suho didn’t move for a long moment. 

“What do you want?”

“Am I still picking Ella up after school today?”

Kris stopped cleaning the mirror and heaved a frustrated sigh. Suho waited, watched his angled eyebrows in the mirror until Kris finally looked up. “Yes.” 

“May I ask why, if you hate me so much?”

“Because she’ll be happy. I can’t take that away from her. Now really, leave, before I beat you with that trashcan and get fired.”

 

Suho parked at the daycare center, circled the building until he found an unlocked door, and then let himself nervously inside. 

“I’m here for Ella Wu,” He said to the frumpy old lady at the desk with tight gray-brown curls and jeweled chains on her glasses.

“And who are you?” 

“Family friend,” Suho said, handing her the form. 

“Kris finally deciding to take care of his kid?” She asked, and then kept muttering over Suho’s sputter, obviously not really expecting an answer. “Honestly, if he has any friends at all he should be sending them here. Who makes a seven-year-old walk home, even if she is the devil’s spawn?” Suho felt very uncomfortable. She took her sweet time skimming over the form, comparing it to other documents, riffling through file folders, until she finally stapled it to something and put it in a cabinet. 

“You can go get her,” she said, and gestured unhelpfully to several doors behind her. 

Suho eventually found the room, which was in the school’s tricked out little kid library with bean bag chairs and colorful posters everywhere.

“I’m here for Ella,” Suho told the librarian on duty.

“She can’t leave until she’s finished with time-out.”

“And when will that be?”

“She has another ten minutes.”

“Oh for heaven’s sakes,” Suho muttered and walked into the library to go find her. It wasn’t hard. She was sitting on a chair facing the corner and continuously flashing glares at some girls a few tables away. “Ella, are you ready to go?”

“Suho! You’re here! They made me sit in time-out for no reason!”

“You threw a book at me!” someone yelled, “You pulled Chelsea’s hair!”

“You said no one was coming to pick me up! I told you! I told you he was coming! I told them you were coming but they didn’t believe me. They said really mean things about Daddy.”

“My mom says you walk home every day because your dad doesn’t love you,” someone else yelled. Suho felt a little faint.

The librarian was no help. “Everyone stop yelling. Ella, face the corner. Your time-out isn’t over. I’ll add another five minutes if I see you talking again.”

“Ella, go grab your backpack. We’re leaving.” 

“But my time-out isn’t over,” she whispered. 

Suho got down beside her chair and looked her directly in the eye. “Ella, I’m overriding the time-out because its stupid. I’d throw a book at them too. They can’t do anything to stop me. Go grab your stuff.” 

As Ella grabbed her stuff, Suho argued with the librarian, who seemed to think that letting Ella off the hook for throwing a book at someone ten whole minutes early was paramount to the collapse of the United States justice system and indeed societal order as we know it. Suho didn’t even bother trying to argue that point, just insisted that he wasn’t going to waste his day idling in an elementary school library over something as stupid as a time-out.

He took her ice-skating at the Rockefeller center. She picked it up quickly, giggling and inching slowly along the wall. “Have you been ice skating before?” He asked. 

She shook her head. “Daddy doesn’t have time to take me. I don’t know if he knows how to do it anyway,” she giggled, “There was a field trip I could have gone on last year where they went ice skating, but it cost eight dollars to go and Dad didn’t think we could do that. Are you taking me to a restaurant again?” 

“Yes. Right after this.”

“Can we get Daddy some food? He hasn’t eaten since Saturday. We ran out. He had to buy new shoes for work so that was the food budget.”

“Wait, have you eaten anything since Saturday?”

“Yeah, I can usually get stuff at school by getting people to share their lunches with me or give me things they don’t want. They do a breakfast thing in the morning too, so I get food. I didn’t eat on Sunday either though.”

Kris got paid on Tuesdays, which meant no food again today if he was already out of money. “Maybe we should go grocery shopping,” Suho said.

“Can we wait? I don’t want to leave until I can go fast like those guys,” she said, pointing towards the teenagers zipping backwards around the ring playing tag. 

“That’ll take a long time,” Suho said, “but if you get on my back I’ll go fast.”

She loved going fast, but she also loved having her skates on the ice, which Suho was glad of because he nearly wiped out on several turns and had to put her down before he dropped her. It was not enough to save them from mishaps. Suho fell on his butt twice and once right on his knee. Ella slipped just as many times, once that looked pretty painful, but got up giggling every time. It wasn’t until Suho fell on the same knee again and couldn’t stand up for a minute, frantically trying not to cry in front of Ella, that they decided to go. 

Ella thought it was hilarious. “I didn’t cry when I fell, Suho. You’re a grown-up and a man! You were crying!”

“I did not cry.”

“I saw tears, Suho!”

“You told me last week that its perfectly ok to cry.”

“Not when you get hurt.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

Suho still thought he might cry. He walked with a limp.

After a nice dinner at a diner, they took a quick stop at a grocery store. Suho let her pick out the food that she knew how to cook, hot dogs, soups, boxes of macaroni and rice, some microwaveable meals, cheese sticks, and a box of coke cans, which Suho resolutely put back on the shelf and bought her orange juice instead. He also threw in a bag of apples and some baby carrots. Nothing too drastic, but he was going to take things slowly. 

“Ew, carrots? Really?”

“Ella, you have got to learn to like eating vegetables. It will make you so happy later in life when what you eat matters.” 

Kris was in his final round of vacuuming when they returned to the office. He dropped everything when they walked in, grabbed the take-out box from Suho without looking at him, sat down against the wall, and starting eating the BLT with the speed and intensity of a starving dog, something like pain on his face. Suho watched in silence.

“We went ice-skating!” Ella said, hopping up and down, “It was fun! I was good at it, even though I fell down, like, three times. Suho fell even more. That’s why he’s limping.”

Kris, nearly halfway through the first part of the sandwich, stopped a moment to chew, gasp in a few breathes, and glance at Suho, expression still blank. Ella was unperturbed. “There were these big kids going really fast and I wanted to go fast too, so Suho picked me up and went really fast around the rink and it was like flying! And then he nearly fell over so he put me down.” Kris snorted. “The we went to the diner, and I had mashed potatoes and chicken. Then we went grocery shopping and Suho bought me carrots. Who buys carrots?”

Kris dropped his handful of fries away from his mouth and croaked, “You went grocery shopping?”

“Yeah! We have enough food to last for a week!”

Suho really doubted that, but Kris dropped the fries back in the box, set the box on the floor, and folded his body up with his head in his arms.

“Daddy?” She clambered forward and forced her way into his lap. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, his head on her shoulder. 

“Suho,” Kris took a deep, shaky breath, voice rough, “Thank you.” 

“Your welcome. She told me you didn’t have any food money right now, so…” 

“Just, thank you. Please stop talking.”

 

At 9:30 on Saturday, Suho dragged himself away from his weekend homework and checked himself in the mirror for the what must have been the fifteenth time. He’d gotten up an hour early because he knew it would take him a long time to formulate a casual outfit that was still hot enough and formal enough to be date-worthy and on par with Seunghyun. He hoped he’d managed with skinny jeans, leather shoes, and his nicest winter sweater. He made sure his hair was firmly in place went downstairs to wait impatiently. 

Seunghyun arrived just on time with that gorgeous wool coat on, casual scarf, nice shoes, hair pushed up carelessly off his forehead. Suho said “hi” rather breathlessly, hands wringing nervously. Should he kiss him since they kissed last weekend? Should he not be so forward and wait till later?

Seunghyun answered that for him, taking his hands and kissing him sweetly, lingering. They walked hand-in-hand all the way to the museum, chattering the whole way there. 

“I love art,” Suho said as they entered a hall of sculpture, “I don’t know why I’ve never been here.”

“I don’t either. This place is fantastic. My favorite piece right now is in the Asian exhibit upstairs.”

“Let’s go there first.”

Seunghyun’s favorite piece was a taxidermy deer covered from hoof to antler in glass bubbles of varying sizes, so thickly layered that the deer itself was all but invisible beneath the glowing glass. “Kohei Nawa: PixCell-Deer#94.” Seunghyun said without reading the plaque, “Could be a reference to a Kasuga Deer Mandala, which are religious paintings that feature deer, the messengers of Shinto deities, posed just like that with a round sacred mirror on their backs.” Seunghyun pointed to the particularly large glass ball on the back of the deer. “It looks like it’s emanating light, doesn’t it?” 

Under any other circumstances, Suho could look at the deer all day, ignoring the rush of visitors around them, but Seunghyun was standing right beside him, so that’s where his gaze went. Seunghyun was watching him look at the deer. “The glass balls represent pixels, of course. It’s a work about how we view things, and the difference between the real and the digital.” 

“You’re really into this whole modern art thing, aren’t you?” 

“Yeah I am,” Seunghyun said with a small giggle.

“Let’s go to MoMA next time.” 

“Really?” Seunghyun’s face lit up.

“Can I?—you know, I’m just gonna—“ Suho stepped forward and pulled Seunghyun’s face down for kiss, keeping it PG for the families around them. “I could listen to you talk about art all day, Seunghyun. I’m enjoying it now and I want to do it again.” 

Seunghyun took him to lunch in the basement cafeteria, and then to dinner when the museum closed. 

“How are your efforts to court the janitor’s daughter going?” Seunghyun teased. 

“Well,” Suho sighed, “word got out that I was using her to flirt on last date and her father took offense. It was scary. He still let me take her ice-skating though. I’m so clumsy. That was Monday and my knee is still so bruised. Love is pain, Seunghyun.” 

“Tell me about it. My feet haven’t hurt this much since I let Jiyong trick me into going hiking with him a couple months ago. Why must enjoying oneself be so much work?”

“A nice evening in would be a good date. We could do that some time.”

Seunghyun smiled. “I would love that. When would be good for you?”

Suho went out on a limb. “Tonight would be alright.” He glanced up from where he was drawing his fingers flirtatiously slowly around the rim of his wine glass to see Seunghyun looking surprised. “I mean, if that’s ok. I’d be happy to move this more slowly if you like.”

“No way. As fast as you’re good with, I’m up for it.” 

They settled down with wine and didn’t make it twenty minutes into the movie before Seunghyun had Suho caught gasping between his arms, smothering him into the couch cushions with his mouth below his ear, slowly running his hands up under Suho’s shirt over washboard abs. 

“Holy shit, Suho. You’re so… wow I love it.” Suho giggled, the true, half-denied reason for all his time in the gym coming to fruition beautifully. 

As Seunghyun’s hand went for the button of Suho’s pants he felt Suho tense up and paused. “Are you ok with this? We can stay out of your pants for now.”

“Seunghyun, I am literally so ok with this you have no idea. I’m just…” Suho squirmed. “It’s been so long. I haven’t done this since the ex-boyfriend.”

“Hah. The Ex-Boyfriend. That sounds ominous. I feel a little challenged right now.”

“You should. He was—“ and Suho moaned “ _adorable_ ,” with a full body sigh, tightening his core and dropping his head back. It had the intended effect of making Seunghyun duck down and try to kiss him into forgetting about the adorable ex-boyfriend. Suho forgot. 

 

Crush week snuck up on the office. On Tuesday he pulled the first all-nighter. When Kris left the night before, he walked right past Suho brewing a pot of coffee for himself and Chen without looking at him or returning his goodnight. 

“What’s up with him?” Chen asked. “He’s a good janitor, but he’s so rude. Do you think we should file a complaint?”

“No, I think I provoke him a bit.” 

“You? You’re the nicest person I know. I would have thought it was the rest of us.”

“Well you all certainly don’t help. He thinks you’re all very inconsiderate, and he’s right. I think I make him angry because, well, I don’t know. He really doesn’t like me, and I make matters worse by doting on his daughter even so.”

“I noticed that when she came in with him last week. Why does he let you do that if he doesn’t like it?”

Suho shrugged, “He says its because I make her happy and he wouldn’t take that away from her. I think he’s a really good father. She absolutely adores him, at least.”

“That asshole is a good father?”

“Sh. Language. You should see him around her. He’s a teddy bear.” 

He forced Chen to go home around 2 a.m. after he fell asleep with his head on his keyboard, leaving Suho to continue formatting a pamphlet on his own. Around four hours later he realized that someone had turned on all the lights in the office. 

“Suho?” he heard, and swiveled his chair slowly around.

“Kris. Are you starting work? What time is it?”

“6 a.m.”

“Shit.” 

“Wait, did you just swear?”

“Huh? I’ve gotta…” Suho turned back to the computer in a daze and kept typing, but his concentration was a little off now. “More coffee.”

“Suho, you need sleep, not coffee. You look like a zombie. Those are some nasty bags under your eyes.”

“No sleep. Coffee.” He saved his work, and grabbed the empty coffee pot that he’d been drinking straight out of for the past five hours, went and set it to brew, and then went to the showers to quickly clean up and change. It was only after turning off the shower that he realized he’d left his change of clothes in the office. 

What the hell. No one was there. He was sleep-deprived. He slipped the previous days’s slacks on, commando, gathered up his things and left the bathroom shirtless and barefoot with his hair still damp. 

Oh wait. Kris. 

Kris had paused mid-copy-machine-wipe-down to stare at him. He let out a low whistle and then said, “Mr. Vice President, are you sure that attire is work appropriate?”

Suho looked down at himself, “Well, no.” 

“How the hell did you get that built? That body does not look like it belongs to you.”

Suho flushed defensively. “There’s a gym in my building. Its fun.” 

“Huh.” Kris would not stop staring at his chest. Suho realized one of his hands was over his mouth and the other with sliding his discarded clothes over to cover his stomach. 

Kris smirked, “Oh c’mon, don’t hide it.”

Suho shuffled past, muttering “I thought you weren’t into men.”

“Now why would you think that?”

Suho looked up in surprise, hand coming away from his face for a moment, “Because you have a daughter and you shot down every man in the office.”

Kris shrugged, “Doesn’t prove anything. Haven’t shot down you yet,” he said, turning his supermodel smolder on high. 

Suho huffed out a laugh to disguise his sudden shallow breathing, tingling fingers dropping to his hips, “Would you be free to go out to dinner tomorrow night, Kris Wu, just the two of us?”

“Hell no,” he said, eyes trained unashamedly on his abs. 

“Yeah that’s what I thought. Now you just need to reject Xiumin and that’ll be everyone.” Kris would not stop staring at him. After a moment’s consideration he flexed just to see Kris’s reaction, running his hands through his hair to stretch his torso out. Kris made a small noise deep in his throat and dragged his eyes slowly back up to Suho’s. They stayed very still for a moment until Suho realized that this did, in fact, count as flirting, and Seunghyun’s perfect face appeared in his head like a reproach. He cleared his throat, arms reflexively coming across his body, and the moment was broken. Kris stepped out of the way so Suho could finish the shuffle into his office to get dressed, do his hair, and most importantly, drink some coffee and regain his sanity. 

Tao’s first words upon arriving were, “That’s the same tie as yesterday.”

“Yeah I was here all night.”

Chen appeared out of nowhere, bowtie crooked, clearly exhausted. “Suho, you should have let me stay! You look terrible.”

“So do you, dear.” 

The day passed in a painful blur. Suho’s hands would not stop shaking from the caffeine overdose he was sure was coming. Around 11:00 he couldn’t resist any longer and texted Seunghyun. _I’m sorry for texted you at work, but I need something to keep me awake._

The response came barely five minutes later. _Like what? Should I bring you coffee?_

_No, I have coffee. I just need something to pay attention to. I’m so tired._

He made his rounds in the office to make sure everyone was on task. Chanyeol looked suspiciously like he had just exited a tab when Suho rounded the corner, so Suho grabbed his mouse and opened it. 

“Vibrators? On work time, Chanyeol? Couldn’t it wait till later?”

“I swear to god that’s not my tab. It was just there when I got back and I was curious.” 

“Baekhyun?”

“I’m sorry, Suho. I didn’t think he’d spend so much time on it.” 

Suho’s cellphone dinged and he pulled it out. _Why are you so tired? What happened?_

“Texting at work?” Chanyeol teased.

“Shut up. I’ve earned this.” 

_Long day at work._

_It’s only 11:15._

_I pulled an all-nighter here. I might have to leave work early._

_Oh man. Get some sleep please._

_I’ll go home when my work is done. Please keep texting when you can. It’ll keep me sane._

The rest of the day passed like that, easy texts at irregular intervals, though Suho was sure some of his texts sounded delirious. At around 5:30, he was just packing up to leave when Kris stopped him.

“Are you getting Ella today or not?”

Suho sank back into his chair. “Oh no, it isn’t Tuesday is it?”

“It’s Wednesday.”

“I’ll go get her. Do you mind if I bring her back here? Plenty of people will still be around.” 

“Do what you want, Suho.” 

Ella knew immediately that something was wrong. “You look like Dad does on bad days. What happened?”

“Didn’t sleep at all last night. Long day.”

“Shouldn’t you go to bed?”

“No way,” he said, smiling cheerfully. “Then I’d miss seeing you.” 

After dinner, Suho took her back to the office, which was just as well since she hadn’t finished her homework. Suho continued to text Seunghyun every fifteen minutes or so in between helping Ella with her homework and overseeing a rather intense poster creation contest between Chanyeol and Baekhyun. Xiumin kept popping in and taking over with Ella, teaching her to fold box balloons out of square pieces of paper. Suho came back over just in time to see Ella poke him on the nose and call him a kitty. He’d never seen Xiumin so flustered. Chen gave her apples and peanut butter. Kris actually smiled when he thought no one could see. 

Suho ordered pizza for the group, retrieved it when it arrived, and forced everyone to take a break and eat it, Kris included. He complied, grinning around at the group. 

“What’s got you so cheerful?” Chen asked.

“Usually by this time of night I’m here alone. Is it going to be like this all week?”

Chen snorted, “I think until at least Saturday you’ll be the one leaving first.” 

After pizza, Baekhyun insisted that he couldn’t possibly go back to work yet. “My brain is fried! I can’t stare at a computer screen right now. Kris, can I help you take out the trash or something?”

“Yeah, I guess so. You want to?”

“Better than package design. What do I do?”

Chanyeol, not to be shown up, took over vacuuming afterwards. Kris, without a vacuum, wandered over to where Suho was spending a few minutes with Ella, playing table hockey with one of her origami balloons. Suho let him take over and slunk out to make sure everyone was focusing. After having a brief shouting match with Sehun, he returned to find Ella clutching a folder of his forms to review, Xiumin’s glasses balanced on her nose like a secretary. He accepted the forms gratefully, resisting the urge to kiss her hair. “I swear I’ve wasted at least three hours today just making sure everyone is on task,” he said. 

“Yeah,” Kris snorted, “and then you wasted another four making sure they were happy and comfortable and well-fed. I have an idea. Why don’t you just do your work and let them handle themselves?”

“They won’t handle themselves. They’re fantastic at what they do, they just need maintenance. We’d flop without them, and they’d flop without the atmosphere and attention. It’s a good system most of the time, but crush weeks are always terrible.”

“You don’t even catch everything. When I’m just wandering around I see them getting into so much dumb shit that you never see.”

“Ugh, what am I going to do with them?” Suho dropped his forehead down onto his folder of forms. Then he had an idea.

“Wait a minute, Kris. Why don’t you be my enforcer? Just while you’re doing your thing, if you see something, go tell them off from me.”

Kris looked doubtful. “I don’t think they’d listen to me.”

“They would though!” Suho scooted forward in his seat. “They’re all intimidated by you. If I gave you authority to call them out, I’m sure they’d respond, and since you’re out moving around all the time maybe they’ll do less stuff because they’re worried about you sneaking up on them.”

Kris got a devilish look in his eye. “Would I get bonus pay?”

Suho thought about it for just a moment, working through budget in his head. “Yes.” 

“I’ll do it.”

Fifteen minutes and one terrified Baekhyun later, the new reign of authority had been installed.

At about 8:30, Suho realized his last text to Seunghyun had been a half hour ago, and had read _So tireakxcm094_. Seunghyun had replied immediately with _Did you sit on your phone? Are you still at work?_ Suho sent back _yes…_

He felt like someone had turned the black/white contrast on high with his vision. Everything was either too sharp or too bright. 

“Suho?” Chanyeol said in a terrifyingly low voice.

“What went wrong, Chanyeol?”

“I just got a notification. There’s an extra component that the CEO wants from us and he needs it by tomorrow morning.”

Suho took a deep breath. “And crush week officially begins. Ok, who’s willing to stay the night here with me? Not you, Chen, you’re exhausted. I need fresh meat. Chanyeol? Baekhyun? Good. Sehun already went home. Tao, I’ll need you functional for the rest of the week because I won’t be. Go home. Xiumin—”

“I can’t. I’m sorry. I’ll take Ella and Kris home, though.” 

“You can’t just pass us around like that,” Kris snapped. “We’ll take the fucking subway.” 

Xiumin looked hurt.

“Kris,” Suho sighed, “just let Xiumin drive you home. He’s probably a safer driver than I am right now.”

“Please?” said Ella, “I like him.”

Kris and Ella left with Xiumin. Suho tried not to feel too cheated. 

 

Day two of crush week began with Sehun spending two solid hours building a pillow fort in the conference room for naptimes. “We need another intern,” he said between arranging pillows and going on yet another coffee run to the Starbucks across the street with the company credit card. 

Kris loved his new position. He’d started carrying a fly swatter in his back pocket with which to mete out punishment on the unwary, but he stopped long enough to come into Suho’s office mid-morning with a twinkle in his eye and said, “Sehun wants another intern.”

“Sehun can’t have everything he wants.”

“What about Ella? If I went get her right after school she could help brew coffee and clean up chip bags. She could even help sort files if she knew what she was looking for. You’d, ah, have to pay her a little of course.”

Suho tried to look annoyed, but couldn’t hide his smile being a stack of papers quickly enough. “I think that could work. I’ll let Sehun know.”

Ella worked like a first rate intern after her homework was finished, running coffee through the office and tucking exhausted people into the blanket fort for a quick nap, even snuggling in next to Xiumin for a few minutes. She and Kris got in a mind-numbingly adorable pillow fight late in the evening, one tiny but ferocious girl chasing around a moody jerk twice her height, both of them giggling wildly. Chanyeol jumped in and the fight ended with Kris in a pile on the floor with one very hyper child trying to smother him with a pillow and Ella giggling wildly from the top of the copy machine. When they finally packed up to leave, the office watched them go with a long sigh, pulling themselves together for another long night, Suho’s third, and he didn’t get to visit the pillow fort. 

 

The final day dragged out in a long painful blur. Suho left the enforcing to Kris and Tao and stayed in his office chair all day with the whole coffee pot beside him. Ella came in to work again and Suho heard her high voice passing his door occasionally, Kris’s low one frequently trailing after it. She brought him soup around seven and climbed into his lap, breaking his hands away from the keyboard. Kris sidled up beside them and stared at the computer screen.

“What even is this?”

“Report….” Suho wrapped his arms around Ella, trying not to breath through his nose because, as usual, she smelled like mildew and grease.

“God I would never do this for a living. How do you stand it?”

Suho decided not to bring up that Kris’s job involved wiping down public toilets. “It’s satisfying and it pays well. I think its fun. Constant challenge. Makes you… think, I guess.” Suho realized too late that he was leaning slowly sideways in his chair, his head coming to rest against Kris’s side, blinking stupidly at the too bright screen. He didn’t move. Kris rested a massive hand on Suho’s opposite shoulder. 

“Um, Suho,” Kris said, leaning forward slightly to look down at him, “you’ve got some, ah, tears on your face there.” 

“I don’t think I’ve blinked in a while. It hurts.” 

He closed his eyes, willing the burning away, and felt a tear track down his cheek. He didn’t even have the energy to be mortified. Kris handed Ella tissues from the box on his desk which she used to wipe the tears off his cheeks. Suho was drifting, closed eyes dragging sleep into his head. 

“Whoa there, wake up, dude.” Kris said softly. He was holding Suho up, who was leaning the full weight of his upper body against his hip. 

Suho sat up, feeling himself beginning to blush sluggishly through the sleepiness, grabbed the coffeepot, and started chugging.

“C’mon, Ella. We should let him get back to it.”

“You should come nap in the pillow fort.”

“Too much to do,” Suho groaned back, “Thank you for the soup though.” He glanced guiltily up at Kris, “Sorry about the, uh—” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Kris said quickly. He cleared his throat, “Just get your stuff down and go to sleep for heaven’s sake. We’re leaving in just a bit so you’re going to have to start doing the enforcing on your own again.”

“What? It’s only 7:00.”

“Your staff has been helping me out on and off all day so its all done. It’s been great, but I feel like I’m not doing my job. I think I’ll have to give up my bonus.”

Suho waved him off, “No no. You don’t get paid enough for the hours you work anyway. Keep the bonus. Maybe we can keep it up afterwards if you still want to be my enforcer.”

“Oh man. Wouldn’t give it up. I’m enjoying myself.” 

Suho’s phone dinged and he grabbed for it, Seunghyun’s name visible in the notification, just a little detail about a dinner with his producer friends, and Suho smiled stupidly even as his eyes threatened to slip closed over the text. 

“Prince Charming?” Kris asked, voice surprisingly soft. 

“Yeah,” Suho answered equally softly, looking back at Kris over his shoulder, who had something strange in the tilt of his strong eyebrows, something almost regretful. 

He pulled himself up off the doorframe and snorted, and Suho thought maybe he’d misread things. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” Kris said. 

Suho tried to keep his offense out of the tone of the report. Honestly, what a jerk. 

 

They finished around 5 a.m., leaving only a few wrap up chores for the next day, and then all went out for breakfast together. Suho returned home long enough to change and shower, and then came straight back to work with another cup of coffee in his hands, though it wasn’t doing him any good. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Tao said, “Go home and sleep.”

“But there’s so much to do.”

“Suho.”

“Tao, I’m fine,” he said, leaning his head on Tao’s shoulder and sagging against him. 

At around noon, Suho called Sehun for a cup of coffee and Kris brought it to him, interrupting his text to Seunghyun by grabbing face and forcing eye contact. “Go the fuck home, VP. You’re not useful like this.”

“On the contrary, I have filed two separate reports this morning, answered five crucially important emails, and scheduled three meetings. And then I wrote an officially apology for Baekhyun’s behavior at the last company meeting.”

“Why is this office so dysfunctional? You look like you have bruises under your eyes.”

“We specialize in—“ Suho yawned. Kris’s huge hands were so warm on his cheeks, “We specialize in getting projects done at an absolutely inhuman speed. It gets us a lot of business. It also sometimes requires absolutely inhuman hours. I only hire people who are more than willing to put that in, and they’re usually pretty dysfunctional.”

“Go home, Suho.”

“Not yet.” 

An hour after that, Suho’s phone went missing, so he started searching the office, going so far as to get down on the floor to look under the desks. And then he couldn’t make himself get back up. 

“Suho,” said a warm and terribly familiar voice. Suho shivered and looked around. There he was, wearing beautiful, beautiful black skinny jeans and that gorgeous wool coat, a smile that made Suho feel like chocolate in the sun. 

“Seunghyun, what are you doing here?”

Tao popped up behind him. “I stole your phone and asked him to come get you because he’s probably the only one you’ll listen to. Go home Suho. You have a very long week next week, so please take tomorrow off and get some sleep. We won’t be able to spare you at all after that.” 

Suho was already slumping into Seunghyun’s arms, his eyes slipping closed. “Ok. I’m sorry.” 

Seunghyun waited patiently while he packed his stuff and kept up cheerful chatter about his day at the studios, something about Jiyong stealing and eating half a box of donuts. Suho’s jaw had begun to ache from grinning so much. They ran into Kris’s janitor’s cart by the elevators. Suho leaned into Seunghyun’s side, eyes closing every time they stopped, but when he opened them he saw Kris giving him a very odd look, eyes sliding from him to Seunghyun’s face, scowl firmly in place.

“Are you the one with the adorable daughter?” He heard Seunghyun ask.

Kris turned his scowl back to Suho and shifted uneasily, “Yeah.” 

There was some more to the exchange, but Suho really was asleep on his feet and missed it. Seunghyun had to stop him from falling over and steered him into the elevator, maneuvering past a stubbornly obstructive Kris, who would not move his cart. Seunghyun and Kris sounded like they were talking, Suho tuned in at the very end of the conversation, Seunghyun saying “—head out of your ass and maybe you would have noticed that.” Suho saw Kris’s furious eyebrows and brought his head up to protest whatever rudeness was happening, but the doors slid closed and Suho forgot how to make an argument, or what he should be arguing anyway.

He didn’t remember much of the drive home, only that Seunghyun walked him all the way up to his apartment and gave him a gentle kiss against his door for before helping him unlock it and seeing him in, and then Suho slept straight through the rest of the afternoon and into the following morning. By then it was a little too late to find out what Seunghyun had said to Kris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things heating up. Please let me know how its going! I'm always happy to have feedback.
> 
> Come visit me at [tumblr](http://ginforink.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/Ginforink).


	3. Chapter 3

On the Monday after crush week, Suho took the liberty of calling in a casual dress code day because they had earned it. He texted Kris to let him know that he was included, which was a mistake because Kris looked a level of good in jeans, even ratty ones, that regular humans should not be able to pull off. Any self-respecting ass-appreciator would have trouble with those legs around. Suho pulled up a picture of Seunghyun on his phone to keep himself occupied. 

It just so happened that the main office saw fit to send in a couple impromptu job interviews. They’d earned some extra budget to be spent on more staff after the hugely successful project. Suho greeted a very stiff-looking young man with huge doe eyes and a suit while wearing a smile and an ugly Christmas sweater. The meeting went something along the lines of “Jongin, right? Intern? Yes, I’d love to take on another intern. Your qualifications look good. No one else has applied so you’re hired.” 

The next was similarly successful, a cheerful, attentive man named Luhan who would hopefully be less of a handful than anyone currently on staff. Suho had thought Luhan was just a very butch woman for a little while. Awkward start, but Luhan didn’t seem too offended.

As he left, Kris stopped in the door and snickered. 

“You just saw that didn’t you?”

“I did. And I’ve already told Tao so soon everyone else will know you thought our new colleague was a woman.”

“You’re awful.” 

“I’m fantastic.” 

Something tugged at the back of Suho’s mind and he sat up straight and spun his seat to face Kris directly. “I’d like to apologize for whatever Seunghyun said on Friday. I mean, I didn’t actually hear it, but I heard, um, ‘head out of your ass’ and then you looked angry, so I’m sorry.”

Kris looked bemused. “Why do you always apologize for other people? It’s not your job. Let them do it.”

Suho had a mini-crisis. Why did he apologize for other people? “I guess if I feel like I’m involved, or if I brought the people who argued into contact, I feel like its partially on me, and if they can’t or won’t apologize there should still be someone apologizing to whoever got offended because it wouldn’t be fair to them if there wasn’t, so I do it. I would really feel bad if I didn’t.” 

“Why do you care so much about people?”

“I didn’t … what? I do? I didn’t realize I did.”

“Really? You apologize to everyone. You sacrificed your own health and sleep to make sure everyone else could function. You came into work afterwards anyway even though you were the only one who hadn’t slept in days just to lighten the workload for everyone else.” Kris’s voice softened. “You buy groceries for your janitor and you pick his daughter up from school two days a week even though you don’t have time for yourself, let alone her, just to make her life a little more enjoyable. You pay us extra for small chores. Why? Do you think you’re morally obligated because you have more than we do?”

“N—no I don’t think that’s why…” he took a steadying breath, always on eggshells around Kris. “I just, really want people to be as happy as possible. I can’t realistically do much but I do whatever I can.” 

“Really? That’s it?”

“I know it isn’t that big an answer. Isn’t that what everyone does?”

“No. People don’t really go out of their way much for me or anybody else. Its unusual. I thought it was just because you felt some sort of self-righteous duty to assist the poor or something, but you do this stuff with everyone, not just me. Chanyeol told me that you hired him out of a homeless shelter because he got fired for his work habits two jobs in a row and couldn’t recover. Tao says you drove him to and from work every day when his car broke down.” 

Suho smiled, staring down at his lap. 

“So you’re just a genuinely nice person, huh? Wow. I didn’t think those existed. It’s like finding a unicorn. Also that sweater is ridiculously dumb-looking,” he said because Suho was smiling too much and beginning to look embarrassed.

“No! This sweater is amazing! Look at the detail on the reindeer!” 

“That’s—you’re—dude, that sweater is hideous.”

Suho stammered, realized that Kris was, by definition, correct, and settled in to glaring instead. 

“You’re not scary, you know. You’re just kind of cute. Especially in that sweater.”

Suho’s hand came up to smack over his mouth, wrapping his other arm furiously around his chest, blush sweeping into his face. Kris straight up giggled. 

“Go away and stop making fun of my beautiful sweater.”

“Your puke green and rotten-tomato red sweater?”

“Stop!”

“You’re adorable.”

“I take back my apology for whatever Seunghyun said.” 

Kris shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah don’t worry about it. He was right.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing I feel like telling you about.”

“uh ok.” They sat in silence for a moment. 

“Well, I should probably get back to getting our new employees into the system.”

“Yeah, I’ve got work.” He paused on his way out the door, “You getting Ella tonight?”

“Yeah. I figured we’d go see something on Broadway.” 

“Whoa really? Isn’t that expensive?”

“Not too much more than a good dinner. I don’t mind. I’m probably going to ask for a raise after all the panic of last week so why not spread it around a bit.” 

Kris huffed. “Right. I’ll let you get back to work then.” 

“You know, we could do something like this on a weekend and all go together. We could go to an art museum or something.” Suho kicked himself a little. Why would he automatically think of recreating his last date with Seunghyun? 

Kris hesitated. “I work as a part time bartender on weekends, but maybe I could… I mean, an art museum sounds really fun. I haven’t been to one in a while.”

No taking it back then. “Well, see if you can work something out soon.”

Kris left, and Suho really did not enjoy watching him leave in those wonderful jeans. He didn’t. He needed a minute to focus back on his work.

 

As the month passed, the office changed. With the success of the recent project, the main branch of the company gave them a larger budget and larger privileges. More importantly, they started taking Suho seriously in meetings, even though he was the youngest in the room by about twenty years and one that most frequently dumped his coffee across the table. 

Luhan moved into the office and settled in nicely with Suho and Xiumin, creating, for the first time, a faction of sanity within the office to combat Baekhyun, Chanyeol, Chen, Tao, and Sehun. Then Jongin, the new intern, started work, and was the office darling within two hours. He was soft-spoken, shy, and absolutely beautiful, but attentive and diligent. Sehun’s jealously was palpable. Whenever someone referred to the “young, hot intern,” meaning Jongin, Sehun would respond, with venom, “which one?” 

Kris loved it. He frequently acted as if Sehun wasn’t even there. “Hey, do you guys remember back when the intern was that annoying kid who was always on his phone and drank half the coffee? I’m glad we traded him in for the new model. Much more effective. Much nicer to look at.” He ignored Sehun’s angry squawking and went about his work leaving Xiumin and Chen to deal with it. 

The office brought Kris in to their office meals and greeted him when they came in every morning. They helped gather their own trash and cleaned up after themselves in the bathroom. Xiumin asked about Ella every couple days and Kris teamed up with Chen to tease Tao, who insulted Kris’s dye job. When Kris got legitimately offended (“This is the only luxury I allow myself, Tao.”) Tao took him home one night and re-did it himself with a promise of tips and assistance in the future so they could “both stay fabulous.” 

Kris came in the next morning, gold-blonde hair tousled carefully, and Suho stood quite still, coffee cup pressed to his lips, not drinking, and stared at the way the fiery morning sunlight drifted through the window in huge slanting rays and lit up the flyaway strands around his head like a halo. “Like it, Suho?”

Suho stammered, face flushing, and nearly dropped the coffee mug as one of his hands flew up to cover his mouth. He forced the image of Seunghyun’s beautiful, soft, dark hair into his mind. “It’s, it’s good, I guess, looks good, um. I prefer black hair though, so…” he turned to run. Kris stopped him with a casual arm out towards the coffee, bringing his wide shoulders right in front of Suho’s gaze. Suho felt himself suck in a breath, cursed inwardly for always being so readable, guilty for staring at someone who wasn’t Seunghyun, who wasn’t even anyone Suho should be interested in.

“The way you always stare, Suho. If you look at me like that I can’t even imagine how you look at your boyfriend.”

Suho flashed an offended glare up at Kris’s eyes, expecting condescension or teasing, but got something blank and hesitant instead. Mystified and still offended, he ducked under Kris’s arm, anger fizzling, and stormed off towards his office. Kris thoughtfully drank his coffee.

 

On the weekend before Thanksgiving Seunghyun brought Suho to his company’s party. “One a month,” Seunghyun told him, and asked him to dress classy but not formal, “and you get to meet Jiyong and all my other friends!” 

Suho had heard stories of these parties, the monthly musician extravaganza that got worse as the holidays got closer. The duty passed around the office, with each producer’s musicians performing at each one. They were often held at restaurants or clubs, but this month Jiyong had the responsibility, and they would be in his apartment.

It was beautiful. Suho gasped and let his mouth hang open as they walked into the glass and stainless steel building, low leather couches and orchids here and there, mood lighting. Beautiful dishes of food sat everywhere and classy young artists strolled around with their dates on their arms. Seunghyun held Suho close and led him up to Jiyong, who was astoundingly quiet after everything Suho had heard, politely shaking hands and murmuring lowly about how he’d heard all about Suho. “Yes, very pleased to meet you.” Suho had a hard time getting a read on him behind the sunglasses. 

“Does he like me at all?” Suho asked a few minutes later.

“Of course! I mean, I think so? I didn’t see any evidence to the contrary.”

“He was so quiet and stoic.”

“He’s usually like that.”

“Really? But in all your stories…” 

“Oh he’s insane, but he doesn’t act like that moment to moment. For the most part I’m the crazy one.” Suho’s head swam. He was a little relieved Jiyong might not totally hate him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he didn’t like Suho very much. 

They settled down at a low couch and chatted for a while. Seunghyun tangled his arms with Suho’s as musician number one finished, low guitar and a high voice, and then the next act got up. Suho’s heart twisted into a knot in his chest. Onstage, smiling gently under the lights, hair swept gracefully up off his forehead and musician’s-black clinging to his small frame, was Kyungsoo, the adorable ex-boyfriend. 

He settled on a stool and crooned into the mic. He’d gotten better, not just at singing, but the way he held himself easily onstage, speaking right to the heart of the crowd, wrapping the audience around his gentle voice. Suho stared open-mouthed, knowing Kyungsoo wouldn’t be able to see him without his glasses. He’d be just a blur at this distance.

A blur that Kyungsoo recognized, apparently, because he locked eyes with Suho halfway through the second song and nearly dropped his mic. 

“Do you know each other?” Seunghyun asked, ever observant, “You both look a little shell-shocked.” 

“We—yeah we used to date, for like, four years. Haven’t seen him since—well we haven’t had contact since I packed up and um, moved out about a year and a half ago.” 

“Wait, he’s the adorable ex-boyfriend? It was a bad breakup?”

“Yeah, I might have, um, might have gotten flustered. Said some things that, well, probably hurt. I didn’t mean to; I just did a really poor job of explaining things.” 

“He’s one of Jiyong’s favorite artists. Just got signed a couple months ago.” 

“I’ll, well, I’m going to have to speak to him, aren’t I?” 

Seunghyun raised an eyebrow. “If you think you should, I’ll give you some space.” 

“Thank you.” Suho said quietly, and spent the remainder of Kyungsoo’s set with his stomach stirring steadily. When Kyungsoo finished, he stood and wandered towards the front, hoping to catch him. Kyungsoo took a moment with the accompanist, graciously thanked anyone who accosted him with praise, but made a beeline straight for Suho, huge eyes wide and expression expectant. 

“Suho, what are you—I mean who invited—are you a guest?” He finished awkwardly.

“I’m a guest, um, Seunghyun’s.”

“T.O.P’s?”

“Yeah, him.” 

Kyungsoo nodded, fidgeting with his sleeves, “ah ok, how do you know each other?”

“We’re, um, we’ve been dating for a few weeks.” 

And Suho hated how Kyungsoo’s shoulders dropped, how his mouth fell in a soft “oh” and his eyebrows drew slowly together. “Ok. I see. You and T.O.P. Funny, I thought for sure he was dating Jiyong. Huh, well I guess,” he seemed to realize his rambling was getting higher pitched, “I guess I was wrong.” They stood awkwardly, just a couple feet apart, the party jostling them a bit. Suho hated how all the awkwardness was back, all the quietness and shyness they’d both gotten over completely around each other over the years.

“How are you doing?” Suho asked.

“Well I just got signed at this label, which is nice. Album coming up. I have a lot more gigs now, and I can charge more.”

“I mean personally, Kyungsoo, how are you feeling these days?”

Kyungsoo searched for words for a little, staring off to the left for a bit, “It’s, well, shit Suho, its lonely and its hard. I haven’t found a new roommate yet. Haven’t looked. Had to move somewhere smaller. All our friends drifted away and I don’t have the energy or inclination to date anyone. Most of the time I feel, well how did you phrase it? Not good enough.” 

Suho jolted. That was a thing he had said frantically in the heat of the moment, Suho remembered. “Kyungsoo you know I didn’t mean that.”

“I know what you meant. You meant that you were becoming more successful and busier and you wanted to upgrade your life and I wasn’t good enough to keep. Its fine. If you’re dating someone like Seunghyun I understand, of course I’m not good enough. I’m not T.O.P and I’m never going to be. I’d ditch me too if I had a chance with people like him.”

“Kyungsoo,”

“Don’t say my name like that. I loved you and you ditched me when you got bored. You have no right to sound like you care about me now.”

“But I do, Kyungsoo. I went about everything all wrong and I’m so sorry.” 

“But you wouldn’t date me again, would you?”

Suho couldn’t bring himself to answer. Kyungsoo made an abrupt noise of disgust and brought his sleeves up to eyes. Suho’s stomach dropped into his toes. “I’m going home, Suho,” he choked, “before I embarrass myself any more. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to bring all this shit up when I finally saw you.” He took a deep breath. “I still have your Harry Potter DVD’s if you want them back.”

He looked up just in time to see Suho crack and choke out, “I’m so sorry,” hands in front of his face.

“Don’t do this, Suho.”

“I replaced the DVD’s. You can keep them.” 

Kyungsoo nodded and slunk away into the crowd without another word. 

Seunghyun appeared at his side. “How’d it go?”

“I feel terrible,” Suho whispered. 

“Do you want to go someplace private for a little while?”

“Yeah.”

Jiyong’s guest bedroom was apparently T.O.P’s second bedroom. He had a small dresser drawer of stuff in the closet and everything. “We have enough gatherings here where I end up too drunk to go home. There are at least four of us that keep extra stuff in here. I’ve told all the others to stay out for a while.” 

That left Suho with space to sit on the edge of the bed and put his face in a pillow for a bit, trying to keep the guilt and shame from becoming too apparent. Seunghyun eventually took his pillow, dried his eyes, and pushed him back to lie down, one hand stroking up and down his back. “Breaking up is hard, Suho, but sometimes it has to happen. Not your fault. I’m sorry it went badly. If it makes you feel better, Kyungsoo is already happier now than when he got here a couple months ago. He’ll recover.”

“Thank you,” Suho whispered, twisting his hands into Seunghyun’s soft shirt. “Kiss me.” 

Seunghyun passionately complied, but it wasn’t until he had Suho half-undressed and moaning on the sheets, Suho’s dick against the top of his mouth and two slippery fingers deep inside him, that Suho forgot about Kyungsoo.

 

Tao and Suho spent twenty minutes with their heads on Suho’s desk the next day. To be fair to Tao, he hadn’t really chosen that position. He’d been talking to Suho about Kyungsoo, and Suho’s head had drifted lower and lower until it rested forehead down on the desk, and Tao followed him down, putting his chin on his arms. 

“He didn’t respond, he just left. Should I have done something different?”

“Something like have gotten up the courage to go get those DVD’s before you replaced them?”

“Yeah, I guess, or maybe I should have said something different.” 

“Maybe you shouldn’t have broken up with him.”

“Haha Tao, come on. I’m happy I’m not dating him anymore because it didn’t feel like it was working but, damn, I wish I hadn’t hurt him so badly. And he wasn’t very nice either. Some of the things he said. It would have felt better if he’d just slapped me. He cried, Tao! He never cried! He didn’t even cry on the day I left him.”

“Yes, you told me. And then you went upstairs to have sex with, essentially, the man you left him for.” 

“Oh my god, Tao, please don’t say it like that. I feel bad enough as it is. I suck. I’m a terrible person, aren’t I? Ugh, I try so hard but god. How will I ever look Ella in the face again? I don’t even miss him, I just really wish I hadn’t hurt him. He didn’t deserve any of that. He didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Don’t cry at work, Suho. People you know might see you.”

“Thanks, Tao. Good sympathy. You're acting like you blame me for this.”

He’d meant it half sarcastically, but Tao was silent for a minute, sitting back in his chair and staring out the window. “Wait, do you actually blame me for this?”

“I do blame you, Suho. You were both perfectly happy, but the minute your career took off and his didn’t, you decided you needed something better so you left him. You made up an image of what you thought you deserved and that image wasn’t Kyungsoo. You fell out of love because of pride and vanity. Now, I’m very happy you’ve actually found your dream man, and I hope it works out, but where did that leave Kyungsoo? Hurt, alone, and struggling. It’s the only thing I’ve ever seen you do wrong, and its kind of a big mistake. Kyungsoo is so sweet. It hurt me to see you do that to him.”

Suho let himself cry at work, “Why would you say that? Why am I friends with you?”

“Because everyone needs someone to tell them their own failings sometimes.”

“But right now?”

“Right now is when you’re open to realizing that you aren’t actually perfect, regardless of what everyone might say. Kris gets it. You should ask him about your flaws sometime.”

“I’m taking the day off.” 

“Don’t be a pussy, Suho.”

“You’d be the expert on that, Tao.” 

Suho spent the rest of the day thinking he’d lost another friend. He knew what Tao really thought of him. Tao would never come back, and he had gone without dinner, getting himself worked up into anger about what a shitty, careless person Tao was, when his favorite pizza arrived, already paid for, with “Please don’t forget to feed yourself. Love you, Tao” written on the inside of the box. For the second time in two days, Suho felt awful. 

 

And so began what Suho predicted to be the worst Thanksgiving of his life. His family wasn’t gathering, he still wasn’t speaking with Tao, everyone else from work was off with their families, and Seunghyun went off with a very cold and collected Jiyong, so Suho was left alone in his house on Thanksgiving morning without the heart to make himself a crummy, one-serving Thanksgiving meal. 

Until he saw someone on the news gushing about a charity throwing a Thanksgiving dinner for families that can’t afford it, and realized that there was, in fact, a family he might be able to join for a day.

Ella answered the phone, “Hello?”

“Hey Ella, Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Happy Thanksgiving! Who are you?”

“Ah, I’m Suho.”

“Suho! Happy Thanksgiving! Dad is taking me to McDonald’s tonight!”

Suho sat right up on the couch. “McDonald’s? For Thanksgiving dinner?”

Ella started to say something but after a brief shuffling sound, Kris’s deep voice came down the line. “Yes, Suho. McDonald’s, because Wendy’s is too expensive. We’re quite happy to have enough for McDonald’s this year, because last year it was Taco Bell.” 

“I’m sorry to interrupt you plans and all, but I’ve found myself completely alone this Thanksgiving and I was hoping I could join you.”

“Hell no. This is a family holiday.”

“You and Ella are the closest I have to family in the area.”

“That’s pretty sad. The homeless people near your apartment might appreciate your company. What happened to Tao? I thought you had plans with him.”

“We aren’t speaking right now,” Suho said delicately. 

“Jesus Christ,” Kris muttered, “You’re both thirteen-year-old girls sometimes. What’s in it for us?”

“I’ll take care of the food and we’ll eat in my apartment because its private. Like you said, family holiday. Let’s eat it in a home, not a fast-food restaurant.” 

“Will there be French fries?” Ella asked, her voice very close to the phone.

“Um, I’ll try to get potatoes?” Suho said.

“There better fucking be French fries.” Kris said and hung up. 

 

Suho got a small Thanksgiving meal delivered from his favorite restaurant nearby. The chef was a personal friend. He had to run down and buy fries from the nearest McDonald’s himself, and then waited for Kris and Ella to arrive. 

Kris walked in off the street holding Ella tightly inside his coat with him. “Some girl destroyed her coat at recess.” He explained shortly. 

“I’ll get her a new one tomorrow. Actually, no, I’ll get her a new one on Saturday after the worst of the shopping terror ends.”

“Why the hell wouldn’t you buy it tomorrow? There will be sales.”

“I don’t really care about sales; I just don’t want to face the market on Black Friday.”

“You’ll spend less money. I insist you get it tomorrow.” 

“I have fries upstairs and the rest of the food will be here soon.”

Ella was completely star-struck by Suho’s apartment. Suho didn’t think much about it normally. It was a small, open-floor-plan space just above the roofline of the surrounding buildings, plenty of large windows and a kitchen big enough to walk around it. Two bedrooms, his own laundry machines, minimal decoration, and impeccably clean.

Kris looked carefully at his print of “Morning on the Seine in the Rain” hung up over a small table against the living room wall. “Is this Monet?” 

“You recognize it?”

“Not this particular one, but I recognize the style.”

“Do you like art?” Suho asked, smiling a little at the memory of Seunghyun lecturing about his favorite pieces.

“Yeah. I had an art history book when I was little. Learned it by heart and made my mom buy me more. I wanted to go to college for art history and museum studies, become a curator or something.” 

“Whoa, really?”

“Why so surprised?”

Suho stammered away from his real answer, which was something along the lines of class differences and how Kris wasn’t in a position that suggested he’d have an interest in art history, realizing that assumption was offensive, judgmental, and elitist, and also knowing Kris expected it of him. He felt himself flush red, hand up to his lips, and stuttered out, “you’re just such a jerk, I wouldn’t have pegged you for having a sensitive side.”

Kris actually smiled, and it wasn’t a sneer or a smirk. “Thanks.”

“Why?”

Kris didn’t answer. He sauntered over to Ella, who was exploring the deep pale beige couch with enthusiasm. “Feet off the furniture, princess.” 

Dinner came shortly after, interrupting their new monopoly game, of which Ella was doing very poorly and not caring a bit. Ella had never eaten turkey before, and she did so with awe, stabbing the pieces Kris had cut up for her with her fork and moving it slowly into her mouth. She ate two French fries and then spent the rest of the meal on the mashed potatoes and stuffing. Try as Suho might, she ignored the parsnips and green beans, but loved the cranberry sauce. Suho could see Kris fighting to keep all the food off her plate so she wouldn’t make herself sick. He could also see Kris handling the food, and especially Suho’s nice red wine, with the same kind of ‘this shit is made of gold’ wonder, eyes going a little large and glazed over and his jaw just a little slack. 

After pumpkin pie Ella fell on the floor, groaning, and fell asleep under a dining room chair. Kris carried her into the guest room and tucked her in, then returned to help clean up the monopoly board. Suho watched him carefully clear up Ella’s scattered paper money and all the houses she had used to build a town on the GO square.

“You’re a totally different person in front of Ella,” Suho said, risking life and limb now that Ella wasn’t in the room and Kris was free to be as much as a jerk as he chose. 

Instead, Kris just laughed and relaxed back into the couch, third glass of wine in hand. Suho wondered how long it had been since Kris had let himself drink. “Yeah, she brings out my best. She gets scared when people are mean, and the last thing I ever want is for her to be scared of me.”

“Why are you such a jerk to begin with?”

“Just who I am. Why are you such a stuck-up bitch?”

Suho took a deep breath, prepared to ignore it and play being disgruntled, but he was tired of acting like he wasn’t a stuck up, well, bitch, because he was, and through all the snide back and forth and all the almost purposeful misunderstanding between them, he really did want Kris to stop hating him. There were too many people telling him he had problems. Tao had told him to ask Kris about his flaws. As a kick in the butt to Tao, or maybe just because of the wine, he decided to list them himself. He didn’t need Kris to. “Because I’m an entitled kid who was handed everything in life but I think I earned it. Because I have a bad habit of hurting people to get what I think I’m owed. Because I’m a perfectionist and I rely on the constant validation of my friends to assure me that I’m a good person.” 

“Jeez Suho, are we really getting into this?” Kris said quietly, staring wide-eyed at Suho, who glared at the Monet print and waited. Kris’s sass got the best of him, “So you’re not a genuinely nice unicorn after all?”

“What? Um, I don’t know. I’m nice because I want people to be happy. Maybe its arrogant to think I can make that happen?”

“You just said you need constant validation that you’re a good person. Is that why you’re so nice?”

“No! No that’s not it. I need constant validation that I’m valuable and a good friend. I do nice things because it’s the right thing to do. It’s what everyone should do. It really shouldn’t be anything special. That’s not what I need validation for.” 

Kris looked confused, but nodded. 

“I asked you why you’re such a jerk. You owe me an answer.”

Kris sighed and finished his glass of wine, then poured another. “I’m an asshole because I was the golden kid in high school and then I got my girlfriend pregnant and became ‘that guy,’ and it was too much of a fall from grace for my pride to handle, so I became an asshole to protect my ego. Happy?” 

“Why would that make me happy?” 

Kris glared.

Suho decided tonight was the night to be self-destructive. “Where’s her mother, Kris?” 

Kris considered him for a long moment. “She left. She wanted her life back. Where’s Tao? Where’s Seunghyun and your rich family that handed everything to you?”

“Busy or with better friends.”

“Why do you keep saying you’re a bad friend? Around all the guys from the office, you’re the most attentive friend ever.”

“You know how a thousand good things sometimes doesn’t make up for the one bad thing that someone has done?”

“No, not really. I get the feeling you’re dramatically referencing something specific so I’m not really supposed to get it anyway.”

“I’m having a bad week. I ran into a—a friend. No, I ran into an ex, I don’t know why I’d deny that, that I really let down and I feel like a really shitty person.” 

“Oh really? Mr. Two-Dates-a-Week-with-Different-People-Every-Time broke someone’s heart? You don’t say?”

“Kris,” he felt tears building in the back of his throat.

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry. Um. It’s ok dude.” 

“I’m horrible,” Suho croaked, “I’m the worst.” 

“You’re not though. You’re really not. I’ve met the worst, and you aren’t him. Just look at how much Ella likes you. She’s an impeccable judge of character. She hates everyone.”

“I would too if I went to her school.”

“Oh man, you don’t know the half of it. You don’t have to deal with the PTA.” 

“Good god.”

Kris laughed humorlessly. “I’m always so scared that they’re going to call child services on me just because Ella doesn’t have a mother. It was her fucking mother that abandoned her and they all look at me like I’m the absent parent.” 

“That’s not fair. You give her every waking moment of your life.”

“She deserves it. She only has one parent, and she deserves the love of two, so I have to be both, but I can’t because I’m always out earning money so she can eat. And then the asshole parents, who think I don’t deserve my daughter because they’re seven to fifteen years older than I am and I dye my hair and can’t pick her up from school, blame Ella when their fucking children tear her only coat in half, the one that I went hungry for a week to pay for. I can’t keep doing this forever, Suho. It either has to change or I’m going to drop dead one of these days and then she really will be on her own. Maybe I should teach her to fight. I’d have to learn first.” 

“I could enroll her in after-school Tae-kwon-do courses or something,” Suho said in a small voice.

Kris laughed, “You don’t have to adopt her. I won’t let you. She’s still my responsibility. I just wish I could fight my way out of this paycheck to paycheck life so I could make her life safe and, I don’t know, fulfilling or something. Better than mine, at least. I would never want this for her. I don’t know what I could possibly do to get us out though.” He snorted. “Maybe I’ll do like they do in movies and become a prostitute.” 

“Can’t you apply for government aid?”

“I technically make too much money for that.”

“And you can’t afford Wendy’s?”

“I spend most of my income on that fucking private school she goes to. It’s the only school close enough for her to walk from that doesn’t have a really scary track record of violence.”

Suho sat in silence for a minute. “Let me take care of both of you.”

“Suho,” Kris said softly, not meeting his eyes, but not angry like he’d normally be, “I would never take advantage of you like that. I’d feel terrible. You’re actually too kind.”

“I have too much money. I don’t need it. I want to give it to someone who does. That’s why I’m going out first thing tomorrow morning and buying Ella a new coat so you don’t have to worry about it.” 

“But why us? Why are you doing this for us?”

“I don’t know,” Suho murmured. 

“Part of me is worried you’re doing this to feel better about yourself.”

“Yeah, me too.” 

There was a long moment of silence. 

“I think,” Suho said just over the noise of the ticking clock, “I’m helping you both because of Ella. You’re right, she deserves more than she has. She’s so precious. But I also wanted to prove that I’m better than what you think, and I didn’t know how to do that besides help you with what you really need help with, and that is making your daughter’s life better.” 

“Ugh. Lucky me. You’re such a sap.” He leaned forward and put his face against on of his hands, holding himself up. Suho found his gaze drifting over that beautiful blond hair again. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. She’s my daughter. I can’t let someone else take care of her, but I can’t do it myself. It’s becoming harder over time, not easier.”

“Let me help.”

“I am. Its so hard. It makes me feel useless, like I can’t make it on my own.” 

Suho tentatively slid over towards him. 

“Are you going to try something stupid like hugging me?”

Suho shuffled nervously, “Well, yes, I was going to, but I’ll stop if you don’t want me to.”

Kris sighed, then flopped sideways into Suho’s lap. Suho gasped and jolted, then carefully laid his hands down, one across Kris’s side, the other against his blond hair, tugging nervously at it. He wished he could reach his wine. 

“What did you do to your ex that you feel so bad about?”

“I broke up with him. I did it poorly. I was really cruel about it, actually, mostly on accident because I’m an idiot and I get flustered. Why did your girlfriend leave?” 

“She didn’t love us and she wanted out. It was only three years ago. Ella remembers it. Her parents got divorced and her mom said she could come back home if she gave up the kid. It was no contest. She wanted her life back.” 

Suho wondered what kind of monster wouldn’t love Ella if given the opportunity, but he kind of understood why a woman would resent that kind of burden. “You don’t blame her,” he realized. 

“I blame her for not loving Ella, but not for leaving. I’d love an easy, no-brainer way out of this mess. I love Ella more than my family, though, so it would be complicated if my parents made the same offer. They won’t though.”

Suho scratched gently at Kris’s scalp, staring down at his profile. His eyes were closed. Suho brushed his thumb over each of his earrings. Kris’s eyebrow twitched and his hands tightened where they rested against Suho’s knee. Suho could see Ella in his features. They shared the same nose, the same lips, had a similar tilt to their eyebrows. Kris smirked, said, lowly, “What would your boyfriend think if he saw us right now?”

“Why do you always have to flirt? He’s not my boyfriend yet.” 

Suho really should have taken his hand away from Kris’s hair. 

Kris turned over in Suho’s lap, face up, staring directly into Suho’s eyes, silent. Suho’s hand stilled. 

“Don’t stop now,” Kris said. 

Suho continued and Kris’s eyes slipped shut again. “How drunk are you?” Suho asked.

“Not very, but a bit,” he smoothed a hand over Suho’s forearm across his chest, squeezing gently. Suho tensed up, his heart thumping, Seunghyun filled his head, but this was alright, wasn’t it? This was platonic. Things were getting dangerously romantic, but they weren’t there yet, right?

“Your arms are amazing, Suho.”

“Do you think maybe we should—“

“What’s your relationship with that guy like? He seems perfect. Isn’t that boring?”

“Not at all. I’ve had more fun in my free time in the past month than I have in ages. We went to a museum, and the opera, and a fancy party—“

“How glamorous. I didn’t mean the dates, I meant him.”

“He’s hilarious and really interesting. He’s a music producer.”

“You feel satisfied with him? You feel like you could spend your entire life living in the same house with him, discussing bills, making food, raising kids, or are you going to keep going on fantastic dates with him every weekend until you both die of old age?”

Suho reached for his wine and nearly knocked Kris off his lap. He took a few long, furious sips, feeling suddenly awash with panic. 

Kris turned his face into Suho’s stomach, curling up a bit like he’d like to go to sleep.

“Get off my lap, Kris. I need to clean up.”

“I don’t want to.”

Suho stood up, toppling Kris to the floor, grabbed the wine glasses, downed the last of Kris’s on his way to the kitchen, and started washing dishes. There weren’t too many, ah the perks of take-out food, and Kris came up beside him, drinking straight out of the wine bottle and looking intensely thoughtful. He bumped Suho out of the way and started washing the dishes himself, giving them to Suho to dry and put away. “You know where they go,” he murmured. They traded the wine bottle back and forth between dishes. 

“It’s gone,” Suho said blankly, staring down the neck towards the few drops at the green bottom of the bottle. He sat right down on the kitchen floor, dejected. 

“I’m going to wake up Ella and go.”

“It’s late and you’re drunk. Stay on my couch. It’s a pullout. I’ll get the blankets.”

“Dude, I’m not even driving.”

“You’re drunk. It’s a big city and you’ve got your daughter with you. Plus, its cold. You’re staying on my couch.”

“I’m going to stay in the guest room with Ella. We have to share a bed at home, too. Its fine.” 

“Ok. Feel free to use my shower in the morning. I’ll get some towels.”

Suho drunk-texted a few emojis to Seunghyun and went to sleep with the phone still in his hand.

 

He woke up at 6:00 the next morning and quickly got ready to head out into Black Friday terror. He had checked Ella’s coat’s size a couple weeks previous, predicting that the coat didn’t have long to live. Macy’s was overwhelming, but he finally got through, found a warm, deep purple coat with a fur-lined hood, and a soft lining, and returned to the house by 8:00 to find Kris leaving the bathroom with a towel around his waist, blond hair damp and sticking up all over the place. “Mr. Vice President,” he said, “we really must stop meeting like this.”

Suho swallowed, face flushing, knowing his eyes were flickering up and down Kris’s body. “I got the coat.” 

“Can I see it?”

“Put your clothes on first.” 

Ella loved the coat. She put it on and ran around the living room shrieking. Kris loved the coat too. He grabbed Suho’s face and gave him a hard kiss on the forehead, and then winked at him when Suho stepped back, flabbergasted. Suho wanted to punch his heart in the face for picking up speed. They didn’t talk about the previous night, but Suho felt it all there in the way Kris kept glancing at him at breakfast, eyes dark and intense, but soft. 

He saw them out afterwards, let Kris give him a rough pat between the shoulders and then sweep his hand quickly all the way down his back to the base of his spine. Suho couldn’t suppress his shiver. He waved at Ella until the elevator doors closed, and then shut the door and sank down to the floor, messages open to where Seunghyun still hadn’t texted him back, and stayed there for at least another hour thinking about Kris’s eyes, his wet, blond shower hair, his earrings, the way he lay across his lap and made Suho feel very young. He forced Seunghyun into his head, his deep chocolate eyes and smooth black hair, that sharp jaw and strong shoulders, the way his eyes smiled when he laughed and the crazy faces he made telling jokes. 

Kris could flirt all he wanted, but he was wrong. Seunghyun was everything he had ever dreamed. Suho wondered why he had never dreamed past dating and thought about what he wanted when the initial attraction settled down and he and the dream boyfriend started living as a unit. Obviously, they’d still go out sometimes. They’d move in together, make each other dinner, sort through arguments calmly, take turns doing laundry, have sex every few days. Suho realized, with a sickening jolt, that his dream idea of love after dating looked a lot like life with Kyungsoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know how it is! Feedback is always appreciated.
> 
> Come visit me at [tumblr](http://ginforink.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/Ginforink).


	4. Chapter 4

Tao brought him flowers. “No hard feelings? You know I love you.” 

“Tao,” Suho said into Tao’s shoulder, “I wish you would have told me I was making a mistake earlier.”

Tao nearly dropped the flowers. 

“Do I hear regret?”

Suho shook his head, “I don’t know. I just—I had Thanksgiving with Kris and Ella, and you’re right, he knows my flaws. He’s made me question a lot of things.”

“Gotta respect that man. I do everything I can for years to try to get you to question yourself and he does it in one night.”

“You’ve been doing that for years?”

“I haven’t been trying very hard.”

“You’re the worst friend I have, Tao.” 

Tao really did look like a kicked puppy when he pulled that face. 

“I’m exaggerating! And not serious! You’re my best friend, you’re just the most painful to deal with a lot of the time. What kind of friend tries to make their friend have personal crises?”

“Family,” Tao muttered. 

“I need a vase for these beautiful flowers. Let’s go out to lunch today.” 

Tao’s returning smile was soft and precious. Suho hugged him again. 

 

Suho did a fairly good job of avoiding Kris that morning. He’d met up with Seunghyun the night before and took the intensifying guilt as evidence that Kris was bad news for his personal relationships, but the new intern brought home-made cookies to work so he had to leave his office. Kris was there, leaning on a Swiffer handle and flicking Baekhyun’s hair into an unruly mess. Baekhyun pretended not to notice. Suho locked eyes with him and Kris raised an eyebrow. 

“Looking a bit red, there.” 

“I, um, I’ll just take a cookie and—“ 

“Calm down,” Kris said quietly under the noise of the group, “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable, ok? I have told you that I flirt with everyone, right?”

Somehow that did not make Suho feel any better. “Right, sorry, I’m just with someone else and that whole thing felt weird and I feel guilty about it now.”

“Why? That was all on me.”

“I know.”

“What are you doing with Ella tonight?”

“Dinner and a movie I think. There’s some cute Disney stuff out right now.” 

Kris sighed, “sounds fun.” 

“Please tell me whenever you have a free day on the weekend so we can all go out to an art museum together.” 

Kris smiled his beautiful smile and Suho forcibly stopped the excited fizzle that ran down his arms. He looked away quickly and Kris snorted. Suho wondered if his face would be stained permanently red from all the blushing he did around Kris.

Sehun was the only person not eating cookies. Suho went over to him and found him slapping labels on folders with unnecessary violence. “You ok over here?”

“Someone has to do work.”

Suho handed him a cookie and sat down beside him. “Just because we love him doesn’t mean we love you any less. We just love to tease you because you’re so worked up about him.”

“I’m not jealous or bitter—“

“You sure act like it.” 

“I’m not, its just—“ he looked around quickly to make sure they were alone, “Suho, you’re my mom, right?”

“Um, sure?”

“He’s too fuckin sexy—oh sorry, scuse me, I know how you get about swearing—and too good at this job, and I feel overwhelmed and frustrated all the time when he’s around. And whether or not you guys love me, no one pays attention to me like they used to anymore.”

Suho wordlessly handed him another cookie, which Sehun immediately bit into, murmured “it’s so good,” and then put his head down on the stickered folders. “He’s so perfect. Why is he so perfect?” Suho rubbed his back sympathetically. “I’m such a potato next to him.”

“What? Sehun, you’re just as attractive as he is, and you have more personality. He doesn’t make you look any worse by comparison. You’re hot shit, and he hasn’t taken that away from you. We’re just used to you.”

Sehun smiled and continued stickering the folders, but more gently. Jongin came over with his box of cookies, Kris following, and offered one to Sehun. 

“No thanks,” Sehun snapped without looking up. Jongin looked distressed.

“I already gave him two,” Suho assured him.

“Oh! Did you like them?” Jongin asked.

“They were fine.”

“He loved them.”

“Suho!” Sehun gasped. 

Jongin deflated, “Did you—you didn’t like them?”

“They’re cookies. Nothing special.”

“Sehun,” Suho said warningly.

“Ok, fine. They were fucking delicious.”

Jongin smiled shyly and hugged the box of cookies closer to his chest. Sehun fixed Suho with a look that said, very clearly, “please kill me now.” Kris stole another cookie from the box, winking at Suho as he did.

 

“I think I’m making progress with Ella’s Dad,” Suho told Seunghyun over lunch later that week. “I’ve won him over a little by pampering her and dragging him into the mix when I can. I took her to the spa the other day, but I won’t get into the details. You know all about making someone feel like a princess.”

Seunghyun laughed, “Ah shucks. I’m glad you’re winning her over. Maybe you should try bringing her over for dinner sometime.”

“I did. Thanksgiving dinner. They were going to eat at McDonald’s but I wouldn’t let them.”

“Good god, I would hope not. Not Thanksgiving.”

Suho giggled. This was nice. Coffee and conversation. Seunghyun would leave on a business trip the next day and they needed some time to catch up. 

“I never got to ask you, how did you enjoy the party?”

“Well, as you know, I wasn’t there for very long,” Suho said, smiling under his eyelashes up at Seunghyun, who gave him a sly smile in return, “and the party was fantastic. I can’t wait for the next one, if you want to take me again after the last fiasco.” Chasing one of the singers away and then crying in the host’s guest bedroom not even an hour into the party, that is, and without even being drunk. 

“Don’t worry, I thought things were handled pretty well.”

“I’m sorry. I thought for sure I was never going to see him again. I was really unprepared to deal with him.”

Seunghyun cleared his throat, “So I guess I should warn you, Kyungsoo is going to be on this business trip.”

“You don’t say,” Suho said faintly, fiddling intently with the lid of his coffee cup.

“Yeah. We’re taking some artists we want to show off, and Jiyong asked Kyungsoo to come along.” Ah, Jiyong. The man constantly in the way. Suho was beginning to suspect foul play. There was no way a man that smart didn’t know putting Kyungsoo and Seunghyun on the same trip wasn’t going to cause some consternation on all sides.

“Does Jiyong know about the situation?”

“Yeah, he does. I was kind of pissed actually.”

“That’s pretty rude of Jiyong, I mean I know he doesn’t like me but that doesn’t mean he has to try to make your life harder because of it, or Kyungsoo’s. I know he’s not going to want to be around you right now.”

Seunghyun straightened up, “Wait, though, its not like that. This is going to be a big opportunity for Kyungsoo’s career, and Jiyong knows that. He probably just thinks we’ll be able to get over it for the sake of work.”

Or maybe he’s just trying to stir up trouble, thought Suho, but didn’t say that. “Kyungsoo isn’t going to be able to let it go. He’s going to feel inadequate and miserable the entire time. Does he even know you’re going on this trip? I would have expected him to drop out.”

“I don’t know,” Seunghyun admitted, “But please don’t accuse Jiyong of being rude.”

Suho weighed his pride against the ending the argument, and decided the second option was more valuable. “Ok, I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”

“Its ok. I understand why you’d get defensive, but I don’t think Jiyong is looking at this the same way we are.”

Defensive? Suho pursed his lips. Of course Jiyong wasn’t looking at this the same way they were, but what advantage did he get from messing with this drama? Maybe Seunghyun was right.

“Tell me how Kyungsoo’s doing when you get back,” Suho said. “I hadn’t thought about him in a year, but I’m worried about him now.”

“Ok, I will, mama Suho.”

“Why have I become everyone’s mother all of a sudden?” he grumbled, but smiled. 

 

Suho came back to the office to a full-out, action-movie gun fight in slow motion, the entire office making sound effects and moving imaginary weapons at slow speed. 

Suho dropped everything and ducked slowly into a doorframe, miming pulling guns out of under-arm holsters, and leaned around the corner to fire out into the room. He got a good shot at Chen’s leg, who dropped to the ground with a beautiful mimed scream. Sehun stood up and tossed a grenade into the room Suho had taken shelter in, and Suho dove and rolled over to the next office, adding an extra roll to mimic the explosion blast, and slammed into the desk in slow motion. He cringed at the state of his suit jacket. Under a desk across the hall, Tao motioned for him to come join him around an imaginary rifle in hand. Of course they’d be on the same team. 

As he rolled across the aisle, Kris appeared down the hallway behind his cart, firing off bullets left and right. He took aim right at Suho and shot. Suho flopped down beside Tao, legs still in the aisle, dying dramatically. Tao yelled, slowly, “No, I’ll avenge you,” and prepared to leap into the fray as Suho held him back, but Chanyeol popped up onto a desk opposite, took aim with a poster tube bazooka, and blasted Kris away from his cart. Kris lay twitching a few feet away. 

Baekhyun dramatically betrayed Chanyeol and took him out from behind. Sehun brutally stabbed Jongin to death and then fell to Tao, who ran out into the middle of the fight, shooting wildly. Chen sniped him, then Baekhyun, and had just stood up triumphantly on the desk, melodramatically favoring the leg Suho shot, when Xiumin rolled over from his spot on the floor and used his dying breath to take him down. Chen dramatically flopped down across his stapler set. 

Luhan emerged tentatively from the bathroom to a room full of sprawled bodies. “Guys, what the hell?” 

“Guy code,” muttered Sehun as everyone stood up and cleaned up the war scene, “at any moment there could be an awesome slow motion battle and everyone has to join in.”

“I don’t know why I agreed to that in the contract,” Suho said.

“I do,” said Chen, “It was the only way I would agree to come work here.” 

“Kris,” asked Suho in a quiet moment, “Do you have any time off this weekend? Seunghyun’s out of town so it’d be a perfect time to take you and Ella out.”

“I work all weekend.”

“How about Friday night? I could get you out early. The art museum is open till nine on Friday nights.”

Kris smiled. “Yeah, if you’re ok with it I can work with that. The work will get a little behind here.”

“That’s fine. It’s just the weekend.”

 

On Friday night they found themselves in front of Monet again, pausing for a long while to let Kris stare wide-eyed at “Water Lilies.” “Holy shit, its huge.” 

A mother with two children passing by turned to glare at him, spotted Ella in his arms and looked even more scandalized. Kris ignored her indignant huff. 

“Your dad swears a lot,” Suho told Ella.

“So do I. My teachers hate it. I get in trouble all the time at school.” 

“Why do you swear so much?”

Kris butted in. “Her mother swore a lot because she didn’t care. I decided it was a lost cause and I don’t care that much either. We’ve rubbed off on her.”

Suho looked to Ella to see how she was taking the mention of her mother. Ella was pretending to bite into Kris’s shoulder, arms locked to her sides and two fingers out like t-rex arms, growling.

Kris could give the name and artist of at least one painting per room, and sometimes much more. 

“You really should be an art history major.”

“I look at community college in my free time. I might be able to afford it someday, but I don’t know if I’ll have the time.” 

Ella spent much of the time running from painting to painting, staring at them, oohing and ahing, giggling when they looked funny, gasping in amazement when they looked realistic. 

“Amazing colors,” Kris murmured at one painting as Ella wailed “EW, he’s not wearing any clothes!” beside him. 

“Sh. You have to be quiet, remember?”

“No touching!” Ella yelled at Suho when he leaned in close to look at a painting.

“I know!”

Ella loved the models of French interior design. It took a while to convince her to leave the “princess rooms,” but then it took even longer to convince her to part with the Egyptian temple. 

They reached the stairs up towards the Asian art exhibits and she threw her arms out dramatically, “My legs hurt, Daddy. Carry me.”

“I’ve been carrying you all evening, princess. My arms hurt. You’ve got to give me a bit of a rest or I’ll accidentally drop you.”

She pouted, but started climbing anyway. At the second landing she stopped and stared up the staircase after them for a few seconds, got a couple steps up, and then sat down. Kris took a moment to slump against the railing and then moved down to pick her up, but Suho got there first, swinging her around onto his back. “I got you, Ella.” 

“Yay! Suho! Are you my Mommy now?”

“Yes.” 

Kris snorted. 

“Mommy is stronger than Daddy.” Ella giggled.

“That’s true,” Kris said, playfully squeezing Suho’s shoulder. “He’s rock solid under that fluffy personality.” 

Suho blushed. 

They reached the room with the deer and Suho caught his breath. The room was completely empty of visitors and the exhibit lights gleamed off the deer like every glass pixcell held a bubble of light. He missed Seunghyun intensely for a moment.

Kris whistled lowly, “This is Kohei Nawa, isn’t it?”

“Ah, you know about this one too?”

“No. I’ve seen some pictures of Kohei Nawa’s work and this just looks like something he’d make. I don’t really know much about modern art. Yup, PixCell-Deer#94 by Kohei Nawa. Wow. It says its taxidermy.”

“What does that mean?” Ella asked, twisting around in Suho's arms for a better look.

“It means they took a real dead dear, stuffed it, and then the artist covered it with these balls. Says they’re fake crystal.” 

“Ew.” 

“It’s so beautiful, isn’t it?” Suho murmured, still imagining those mahogany eyes and sleek black hair.

“This would make a really cool floor lamp,” Kris agreed. 

Suho made a few undignified snorts, completely caught off guard by Kris’s practical interest, so different than Seunghyun’s studied reverence. How offended would Seunghyun be if he heard Kris compare his favorite work to a floor lamp?

Kris read the plaque beside the deer. “This says something about about a comparison to traditional Shinto art.”

“What do you think it means?”

“Well, I don’t know anything about traditional Shinto art, but I know Kohei Nawa does a lot of stuff representing digital stuff with real stuff. The word PixCell is probably about mixing pixels with cells, which come from living stuff. I also feel like the fact that the deer is taxidermied and not just a frame is significant. This probably represents how we see things digitally, things made of pixels that look like real things. Here, all I can see are pixels, even though the deer is really there, so its kind of the opposite of a computer, where we see a deer, but what’s really there is pixels. It switches the focus.” 

“Wow. You’re good.” 

Ella chirped, “I think it’s a fairy deer because its pretty.” 

“I like that,” Suho said, “I like both of those interpretations.”

“What’s yours?”

“Mine is pretty close to yours, I guess. This is Seunghyun’s favorite piece so he had stuff to say about it. It was a lot like what you said with less detail. Maybe you two should meet up and talk about art some time.”

“I’d rather not.”

“You don’t even know him, Kris.”

“I’ve met him before. Remember the one time he came a got you at work?”

“Oh right!”

“We didn’t hit it off real well.”

“I remember. What did he say to you?”

“I told you, I’m not telling.” 

They carried a sleeping Ella back to Kris’s apartment. 

“What does she do on weekends?”

“I usually leave her at my friend’s apartment. He sells weed from home most weekends so he’s usually available.” 

Suho stopped short. “You leave her with a drug dealer on the weekends?” 

Kris fixed him with a glare. “Yixing is my only close friend. He’s a great person and he’s very careful. Of course I leave Ella with him.” 

“He’s my only friend too,” Ella murmured sleepily.

“You have me,” Suho squeaked. 

“Oh right.” 

Suho tried not to look too hurt but probably failed. Kris laughed gently. “Yeah, we have you too. You should come meet Yixing if you’re so suspicious. He’ll probably play guitar and dance for you or something. He’s a little strange.” 

Kris’s apartment felt like something you’d see in a thriller: dark, smelly, tiny, and cluttered with decay. The ceiling tiles were falling in, the carpet was missing in places, and the paint peeled off the walls. “I know its not exactly your apartment,” Kris said, catching sight of the stunned expression Suho was too slow to hide. 

“This place is a fire hazard.”

“Oh believe me, I think about that every day.” 

Suho lay Ella down on the bed and took her shoes and coat off. 

“Are you tired at all?” 

“My arms might be a little stiff from bending like that for so long.” 

Kris sighed heavily and rubbed his wide hands over Suho’s shoulders. “Why do you have to be better for her than me with absolutely everything?”

“Kris, we haven’t tested everything. How could you possibly know that? Its not true.” 

“Yeah it is. You know, I don’t know how I’m going to buy that doll for her for Christmas. Working overtime every day from now until Christmas will only barely be enough, even with the bonus, and I want to get her other presents too. Fuck Christmas. I had to explain to her the other day that Santa Claus isn’t real because I don’t want her to think that Santa thinks she’s been bad when nothing shows up on Christmas day. I’m fighting for every one of those gifts and fuck Santa if he thinks he’s taking credit, but now she thinks she’s not getting the doll because she knows that if Santa isn’t coming we can’t afford it. She cried all evening.”

“I’ll help you pay for the doll, and you can believe I’m buying her stuff on my own.”

“Don’t help me with the doll. That one is mine, even if the entire franchise is fucking stupid. As soon as she gets it there are going to be a million other little pieces that she’ll want along with it.”

“I’ll buy those.”

“Feel free. Fuck Christmas.”

Suho couldn’t help it. He pulled Kris in for a hug. Kris immediately wrapped his huge arms around Suho’s back and pulled him in close, burying his nose in his hair. Suho stood wide-eyed against his chest, arms around his waist, and tried to breath evenly. 

“Ella got in deep shit at school for starting a fight between kids that believe in Santa Claus and kids that don’t,” Kris said, “There’s just no winning.” 

Suho hugged him tighter, trying not to feel betrayed by his favorite holiday.

“You smell good,” Kris said. 

Suho wished he could say the same, but as usual, Kris smelled like cheap food and cleaning fluids. He held on anyway. 

“Suho, thank you.” 

 

“What would I even buy for a seven-year-old girl anyway?” Tao whispered frantically, “I usually buy people cologne or earrings at Christmas. Socks for people I really don’t care about.”

Suho paused. “You buy me socks every year.”

Tao shrugged. “I know I don’t have to try for you. You love socks and you love everything I get you.”

“At least buy me a tacky sweater or something! Socks, Tao?” 

“Don’t make me feel bad now; I’ve already bought yours for this year.” 

“Tao!” Suho rubbed his temples, “you know what, never mind. You usually get people cologne? Get her girly body spray or something! Hell, get her socks. She could probably use them. Or go to a freaking toy store and pick up just about anything. She seven. She won’t care. Get her dinosaur figures or something. She likes impersonated t-rex’s.”

“Don’t get her that,” Xiumin said, sliding in from the side, “That’s what I’m getting.” He turned to Suho, “Hey, what do you think I should get for Kris?” 

“I don’t think we should do this whole thing for Kris. He might get offended. He’s already on the Secret Santa list.”

“I know, but he’s on my list of friends that I’m buying stuff for.”

“Oh, well that’s nice. I don’t actually know what you should buy him. Coffee?”

“Big warm blanket,” Tao suggested. 

“That’s what I was going to get Ella though,” Luhan said.

“Shhhh!”

Kris passed in the distance, oblivious.

“I just asked Kris what Ella wants for Christmas so don’t anybody else do it or he’ll suspect,” said Sehun.

“Sehun you little bitch,” Tao snapped.

 

When he finally met up with Seunghyun at the end of the day, he was too exhausted even to comment on Seunghyun’s ugly Christmas sweater, a gross, fuzzy green thing with red bears and white garlands.

“Long day at the office, dear?” Seunghyun asked, settling him down on his couch with hot chocolate, and Suho groaned because Kyungsoo used to tease him every day with that line. 

“I’m trying to set up a thing for Ella and get everyone in the office to get her a Christmas present and they’re all either going way overboard, or in the case of Tao, not overboard enough. He wants to get her silly putty. I have no idea why. How was the trip?”

“Pretty good, but you were right about Kyungsoo. He had no idea I would be there. He shut down. Didn’t talk, didn’t go out with the group. Such a shame. I like that kid. He’s so calm.”

“You’re telling me. He was always the one who kept me calm.” There it was again, the lurching sense of impending regret. 

“I’m sure you took care of him too.”

“I did. I’d feed him during finals and hold his hand right before auditions when he got really nervous. I’d force him to go to bed at night and get up in the morning. Come to think of it, I don’t know how he functions without me.”

“He’s perfectly functional. He always struck me as very put together.”

“When did that happen, I wonder?” 

“Suho, please stop beating yourself up about this.”

“You’re right, I’m sorry. You just invited me over and made me hot chocolate and I’m whining about my ex. I’m sorry.” He felt himself curling around his mug.

“It’s ok. I don’t mind. I know you’re worried about him. You worry about everyone and I like that about you.”

Suho glanced up in disbelief, and there was Seunghyun, sincere and caring, leaning over to look at his face, brows drawn together, and had to bring his mug of hot chocolate up to hide his smile. Seunghyun grinned fondly back. Suho brought his mug down slowly, knowing he looked distressed again and not bothering to hide it. It was one thing to worry about Kyungsoo. It was another thing entirely to worry that breaking up with Kyungsoo was the worst mistake he had ever made, especially with the new boyfriend sitting right there with a matching mug of hot chocolate and a sweater even more hideous than Suho’s. 

He cleared his throat. “I like that sweater.” 

“Thanks,” he said, grinning, “my mom bought it for me and I can’t wear it in public because my friends will start asking me if I’m ok, but I figured you wouldn’t judge me for it.” 

“It’s excellent.”

“Thank you. I’m glad you approve.” He pulled Suho’s mug from his hand, set it on the table, and leaned in to kiss Suho softly.

Suho thought “screw it,” and leaned fully into the kiss, climbing onto Seunghyun’s lap and grabbing the collar of his ugly sweater. Seunghyun leaned back against the cushions, pulled Suho’s thighs tighter around his hips and ran his hands up his back, hugging Suho snug up against him. 

They had what should have been wonderful, therapeutic sex right there on the couch with Suho clutching Seunghyun’s shoulders and Seunghyun rocking deep and strong inside him, but when Seunghyun lay out behind him and fell asleep under the afghan, Suho felt like he was somehow in the wrong space, that he hadn’t earned the man behind him.

 

“Mr. Suho, I don’t think Kris is ok.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Suho said, looking up at Jongin, who was fiddling with a necklace he could have sworn Sehun was wearing just a few days ago. He decided to address that detail later. 

“He’s pale and shaky and he keeps standing still and leaning on things. I asked him if he was ok and he—well, um, he snapped at me and said he was fine, but I don’t think he is, and I’m worried.”

“I’ll go talk to him”

“Can I hide in your office while you do?”

“Of course.” 

Suho found Kris half hidden behind the cubicles leaning his full weight on his cart. He was, as Jongin had reported, pale and shaky. 

“Kris, you’re not ok,” Suho said and Kris jumped, “Don’t even try to tell me that you are. What’s wrong?”

Kris turned slowly. He looked terrible, his already pale face sheet-white with purple bruises smudged under his eyes. 

“Hold still while I—Hold still!” Kris had tried to jerk away from Suho’s hand when he raised it to his forehead, “I don’t think you have a fever. What’s wrong? Why are you at work?”

“I can’t afford not to.” 

“You’ll get someone else sick too.”

“I don’t think I’m contagious. I’m just exhausted.”

“Why are you exhausted?”

“I don’t sleep enough, obviously.”

“You have to take a day off or something. You look like you’re about to pass out.”

Kris whipped around, and he was way too tall. Suho took a couple quick steps back. “Easy for you to say, you rich asshole.” Suho felt his throat close up. He was sure they’d gotten over this. “You don’t have a daughter asking for more money because the school is giving them a Christmas store, because what a fantastic fucking idea. She can prove in front of her entire class that she has no money. You don’t have to pay for a decent school and after-school care just so they can make your daughter fucking miserable. You don’t know what it feels like to slowly starve because food is expensive, or live in New York in the middle of December without heat because you couldn’t pay the bill. I am working myself to death until I can pay for everything this month and if you stop me you’re just making things worse, wow how’d you get so tall?”

Kris knees had given out, and Suho, almost expecting it, had caught him under the arms and held his entire weight up off the floor. Kris’s eyes slid shut and his head pitched forward onto Suho’s chest, who, with some grunting and probably compromising maneuvering, lowered him onto the floor and then ran to get Chen, the floor safety manager.

“Well,” Chen said, “I’ll get the nurse.” 

“We have a nurse?”

“Yes. Her office is on the third floor. She’s practically useless, but I’m required to call her.” 

The nurse sent him home for a couple days. Kris would not pick up the phone when Suho called. 

 

Suho went to Kris’s apartment that Friday evening and a stranger answered the door. Suho figured he’d come to the wrong room.

“Oh, sorry, I’m looking for Kris Wu.”

“Yeah, he lives here. He’s asleep. Come in.”

Suho sidled in past this tall, thin man who’s eyes were red like he was high. Oh. “You’re Yixing, aren’t you.” Yixing nodded. Suho noticed the beanie and blank expression. Typical stoner. Ella appeared underfoot, said “shhhh,” very quietly, and then asked to be picked up. Suho lifted her and walked further into the apartment, noticing a lot of zip-lock bags and a few huge piles of weed on the kitchen table. Kris was sitting up slowly, blinking. 

“Suho. Why are you here? I’m still mad at you.” He yawned.

“What for?”

“Because I worked my ass off for two weeks and now it doesn’t matter because I’m not getting paid and I’ve fallen behind.”

“You’re the one that collapsed. We are legally obligated to tell the proper authorities when someone does that. You want to see both Chen and I lose our jobs over something like this?”

“No, I guess not,” 

“Have you been enjoying your days off?”

“No. I’m too stressed.” He pulled Ella out of Suho’s arms and hugged her close. Ella squirmed around and started tugging Suho down too.

“Ah, no, I really shouldn’t—“

Kris grabbed Suho and yanked him onto the bed. He fell pell-mell across the other two and had to scramble to right himself so it was him and Kris with Ella between them. For a long, deeply and disturbingly comfortable moment Suho lay close to both of them, staring into Kris’s intense eyes with what he was sure were wide, terrified ones. It was as if it was his own bed, and Ella their child. He felt warm. Yixing ruined the moment and dropped down on top of Suho, who squeaked. 

“Sorry dude. I don’t know you at all, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to be the only person not in on the cuddle puddle. I fucking love cuddle puddles.” 

Suho flinched. Everyone swore too much.

Ella shrieked with laughter and poked at Yixing’s dimples, who patted her cheek and then reached over Suho and grabbed a pipe and lighter from the top of the bedframe and lit up right over his face. 

It all felt very surreal to Suho, who had never smoked weed in his life. There he was in his janitor’s apartment, lying on a twin bed with a seven-year-old girl and two other grown men, one of whom was slowly blowing milky white clouds of dank smoke out of his mouth, inches above Suho’s face.  
“Hey Yixing,” he heard Kris say, “Let me shotgun that.”

Yixing moved over Ella to level his mouth with Kris’s. He took his next slow hit right above Kris’s beautiful, focused eyes, sunlight gleaming off the pipe and into Kris’s golden hair, then leaned down like he meant to kiss him and let the smoke flow out gently just above Kris’s open mouth, who breathed it in, eyes slipping closed, one hand resting against Yixing’s jaw and the other, as Suho was very uncomfortably aware, crushed between himself and Ella. She faced the other way and played with the ends of her own hair, completely oblivious. 

It was the hottest thing Suho had seen in a long time. He was short of breath, his face had never felt so warm, and his dick was having a difficult time deciding whether getting extremely turned on by Yixing and Kris was worth it when Ella was _right there_ , and Suho had a perfectly hot boyfriend waiting for him elsewhere. Kris breathed out the smoke in a steady woosh, his head tipped back to avoid puffing it right back into Yixing’s face, his long, smooth neck bared below Yixing’s mouth. It was almost a waste that Yixing didn’t just lead down and kiss it, but then he flicked the lighter, gentle glow lighting up the shadowed planes of Kris’s jaw, and Suho stopped breathing completely.

Yixing passed another breath of smoke gleaming milky in the afternoon sun between Kris’s lips and Suho felt an acute stab of longing, almost jealousy. He wanted to be the one watching Kris’s face relax beneath him, Kris’s hand on his neck and his legs tangled with Suho’s. The strength of desire hit him hard enough to have a lump rising in his throat. 

He made a quiet noise of shock, which must have sounded like a moan, because Kris’s eyes opened and both he and Yixing turned to stare. Arousal effectively killed by fear, Suho fought his way out from under Yixing, brushed Ella’s face with a soft, “I’ll see you Monday,” and practically sprinted for the door. 

Kris caught him right before he reached the hallway stairs, “You shouldn’t go yet, you just got here.”

“No,” he tried to tug his arm out of Kris’s grip, not sure he could look him in the face, “I, um, have dinner with Seunghyun soon.”

“You’re always so busy with him on the weekends. Was it the weed? I’m sorry, I should have asked if you were ok with weed before we dragged you in.”

“Weed? I’m fine with weed, Kris. Ok, not totally fine, but I can get over it. There’s nothing wrong with weed. It’s whatever.”

“Was it Yixing and I then?”

Suho laughed, probably hysterically, successfully freeing his arm and backing towards the stairs, ready to go at any opportunity. “Do you two, you know, do that? Like, often?”

“Yeah.” 

“With Ella right there?” 

“Well, yeah, I mean we never do anything inappropriate. Well, almost never.”

Suho felt betrayed as his mind registered weak arousal and moderate possessiveness. His lungs felt like they weren’t letting out any air. Seunghyun. He needed to get away from this beautiful man, who still had sleepy eyes and tousled blond hair, and get to Seunghyun. 

“It’s just practical because we’re both broke as fuck. Saves us money. You seemed to like it.”

“That wasn’t me liking it, Kris,” he squeaked, feeling that it was crucial that Kris understood, “that me being terrified. Sometimes you terrify me.”

“What? Why?”

Suho felt like screaming because it should be so _obvious_. “I have a boyfriend! I have a boyfriend who is perfect and everything I’ve ever wanted but then there’s this ex that I miss, and that’s scary enough as it is. And then you do these things, like flirt with me, or touch me, or practically kiss someone else in front of me, or even fucking smile, and for a moment I forget there’s anyone else, and it’s terrifying.”

He saw Kris’s face turn from concerned into surprised, something of a smile appearing, and realized what he’d just admitted to. He gasped, jerked his hands up over his mouth, and then turned and raced down the stairs, not stopping when Kris yelled “wait!” and tried to stumble after him.

“Get some rest,” he yelled back up the stairwell, but didn’t stop running till he was locked in his car driving away and could drown out his screaming thoughts with the radio.

 

Seunghyun picked Suho up that Saturday night to go to the production office’s annual Christmas extravaganza, a black tie event in a gorgeous hotel. He came early and got to watch a very flustered Suho mess up his bowtie about five times and fret over his hair. He sat on the bed and made sound effects to imitate the bowtie’s distress until Suho threw hair gel at him. 

“Will Kyungsoo be there?” he asked in a small voice as they walked out, Suho’s arm in his.

“Undoubtedly. You can handle it.”

Seunghyun, Jiyong, a top performer named Seungri that even Suho had heard of, and all associated dates had a limo together, and Suho’s proximity to Jiyong did nothing to calm his nerves, nor did the presence of the other dates in the car, two undeniably sexy young women in sparkling gowns and five-inch heels. Even worse was an impression of smoke and sunlight, lying in a bed with Kris a foot from him, an image that slid into the edges of his thoughts with alarming frequency. He gratefully accepted a glass of champagne from Jiyong, who looked like a cross between a pimp and a bird of paradise, and then flinched when he flopped down beside him, expression unreadable behind his sunglasses.

“So I hear you and Kyungsoo used to date. He won’t tell me why you broke up. Will you?”

Suho was spared from answering when Seunghyun reached over his lap and shoved Jiyong’s face. The others cackled and Suho sank back into the seat, sipping the champagne as his white knight defended him. He kept thinking about what Kris would have to say about all this opulence, the car, the drinks, Jiyong’s coat. It would be fine if Ella were there. She’d love every bit of it, and Kris would love it right along with her.

The hotel lobby itself picked up his spirits, and by the time they entered the bright, tall ballroom layered with white tables and low sitting areas, he felt like Cinderella. The group parked themselves on a square of couches and Jiyong called the champagne over, finally taking off his sunglasses to reveal eye-makeup more elaborate than his date’s. 

Suho stayed out of the conversation for the most part as it drifted loudly back and forth across the group, and kept an eye peeled for a certain petite ex-boyfriend in a tux. He caught sight of him a couple times across the room chatting and smiling, looking like a penguin, and relaxed a little. Jiyong filled Suho’s glass yet again and he absent-mindedly drank it down. He watched Seunghyun and Jiyong get steadily drunker, laying against each other and laughing at all of their dumb inside jokes. It was halfway between grating and endearing. 

Jiyong left to go greet everyone at the entire party and the rest of the group got up to go dance. “Leave me here. Too much champagne,” Suho said. 

“You have me to dance with,” Jiyong’s date, CL, as Suho remembered, told Seunghyun. “I don’t think my own date is coming back.” She turned to Suho, “And I promise I won’t try anything on him.” 

Seunghyun frowned down at him. “Are you sure you’re ok here alone for a bit? You seem a little under the weather.”

Suho blushed guiltily. Maybe he was ruining Seunghyun’s experience. “No, no! I’m fine. I’m a little shy and I’ve had a LOT of champagne, so I’ll just sit here and people-watch for a bit.”

“I’ll keep him company for a little while if you’re worried.”

Suho looked up in terror. Kyungsoo stood just behind Seunghyun’s elbow, looking up with wide, adorable eyes, seemingly completely at ease. Seunghyun looked just as startled as Suho felt. They shared a mystified look. “Do you mind?” Kyungsoo asked.

“No, not at all,” Seunghyun said as Suho shook his head emphatically. 

Kyungsoo took a seat on the couch adjacent to Suho. Seunghyun gave Suho one last curious look, which Suho answered with his best “I have no idea what’s going on” face, and then offered CL his arm and swept off towards the dance floor. 

“You look a little lost over here,” Kyungsoo said.

“I don’t know anyone very well and they’re such good friends.”

Kyungsoo nodded. “They’re all so loud. Big personalities and all that. It’s hard to get a word in edgewise. I’m learning though. They’ve started listening when I talk, so that’s good.”

Suho looked at Kyungsoo in amazement. Besides his posture, arms crossed tight to his chest and feet close together, he looked nothing like the sad, worried figure Suho had been imagining. 

“How was the trip a week ago?”

Kyungsoo laughed with a little embarrassment, one hand coming up to smooth his hair back, “Well, it was a little awkward. I spent some time exploring the city on my own, though, and that was really nice. Got some good singing and PR in. Jiyong and I went out on the last night and got hammered. Worst plane trip of my life the next morning.”

Suho laughed, relaxing, leaning forward to hear more. “What on earth possessed you to do that?”

“Oh, you know Jiyong. He can convince anyone to do anything.”

They lapsed into a semi-comfortable silence. Kyungsoo took a deep breath and leaned forward. “Suho, I wanted to apologize for how I handled things at the last party. I shouldn’t have been so accusatory. It was rude and unfair.”

“No, it was totally fair, Kyungsoo. I deserve everything you want to say to me. I wish I hadn’t hurt you the way I did. I just wish you were happy.”

“Yeah, well, you had your chance,” Kyungsoo said quietly, and then, before Suho could waste too much time on really feeling that comment smack him in the face, he added, louder, “Are you really happy, though, Suho? I’m a little worried.”

“What?” 

“It’s just, you and T.O.P, I would never have called that. He doesn’t seem like your type at all. He seems like the type to treat anyone he’s with like a princess.”

“He does.” Not his type? His absolute vision of perfection?

“Really? And that makes you happy?”

Suho nodded vigorously.

“Oh.” Kyungsoo shrank in on himself. He just looked so small. Suho wanted to run over and pull him into his lap. “I just always figured you thrived on taking care of people. Being pampered seemed to turn you off.” 

Something clicked in Suho’s mind. Some small sliver of dissatisfaction, a crucial piece of the puzzle not in place. Count on Kyungsoo to know him best. Of course he thrived on taking care of people. That’s what got him up in the morning, what ran his day, the whole reason he’d been so interested in Kris and Ella. Why was it missing from his relationship? He was too drunk with this revelation, or maybe just drunk, that he missed Kyungsoo saying, “We took care of each other. I thought that was what kept our relationship going. That’s why I was so surprised when—well if you wanted this instead I can see why you—I’m sorry, Suho.” 

“What? No, its fine. I’m sorry. What are you apologizing for?”

“For—never mind.” 

“Kyungsoo.”

Kyungsoo smiled softly and said, “Don’t whine at me, Suho,” another painfully familiar Kyungsooism, and Suho’s heart ached right down into his fingertips. “I should go. Your, um, your boyfriend is coming back.”

Suho let him go, watching him slip his thin shoulders easily through the crowd and disappear. “Too drunk to dance,” Seunghyun grunted and nearly sat on Suho by accident. 

Though Kyungsoo was nowhere to be seen for at least another half hour, Suho didn’t notice. He had plenty to think about, curled up against Seunghyun’s side. Sure enough, there was the missing emotional attachment he’d been trying to avoid. Seunghyun was perfect. _Perfect_. He was dashing and successful, well-dressed and funny. He gave him affection and attention, showered him with jokes and good nights, picked him up from work and hugged him when he needed it, but according to Kyungsoo, that wasn’t what he wanted, and Kyungsoo always knew him better than he knew himself.

Part of his mind rebelled. This was all he’d wanted since before he broke up with Kyungsoo. The past couple months had been heaven with Seunghyun. How long would it last? What did he want? What made him feel best? He tried to think of when he’d been happiest. Had it been at the Opera, that first kiss outside his apartment, their first time having sex on his couch? The lunch date that turned into a game of tag in a bookstore? Last weekend at the New York Philharmonic’s Christmas concert?

An image of Ella’s face popped into his mind. Ella giggling on ice skates, Ella having a pillow fight with Chanyeol, jumping up and down as she held his hand in line to see The Lion King, eating mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving, squealing and hugging her new purple coat, Kris murmuring “Thank you,” into his hair as he hugged him tightly.

Suho stood carefully and tottered off to spend some time away from Seunghyun and Jiyong, time to hold his spinning head in his hands and look distraught in the privacy of a locked bathroom stall, hoping it wasn’t too crowded. He didn’t notice both Seunghyun and Kyungsoo watching him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the plot thickens... Please leave feedback! I love that stuff.
> 
> Come visit me at [tumblr](http://ginforink.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/Ginforink).


	5. Chapter 5

Suho’s company threw their big party on a Wednesday night, which just so happened to be the due date of a small project for just their office, and they could not attend. Suho swore they did this on purpose. Just because they listened to him at meetings did not mean they’d been forgiven for the Fourth of July Cookout Fiasco, or the Chanyeol Halloween Disaster. Suho held a party of their own the following day for the Secret Santa gift exchange. 

Suho tried to get his heart into it, but Kris and Ella had started reminding him of his continuing hang-ups with Seunghyun and Kyungsoo, and he still couldn’t get over the way Kris’s mouth had looked under Yixing’s.

The exchange began. Suho got Tao socks, who got cologne for a very put-out Chanyeol (are you trying to tell me something here, Tao?), who got a gold-plated toothbrush for an equally put out Chen (I can’t use this!), who gave Luhan a Bambi blanket, who got a very fashionably excited Sehun a set of cute suspenders and bowties, who gave Xiumin a gift card to a bubble-tea shop, who gave Baekhyun a set of bondage ropes (For Chanyeol because he needs it) to everyone’s amusement (except Kris who was covering Ella’s eyes), who gave Jongin a wrist watch because he was frequently late, and Jongin gave Kris several day’s worth of his cooking in plastic containers. 

“Who did you get?” Chen asked Kris.

“Suho.”

“What did you get him?”

“I agreed to let him make dinner for Ella and I sometime soon.”

“Cute.”

“Yup.”

And then the entire office jumped up, grabbed presents hidden all over the room, and gave them to Ella. Ella screamed and hid under a couch cushion for several minutes before she could be coaxed out to open the gifts. She got a giant, fuzzy blanket, five scarves, toy dinosaurs, a hair care set from Suho, a cute purse plus perfume from Tao, a prank set (Kris nearly punched Chanyeol), a box of Jongin’s cookies, Lincoln logs, a gift card to a bubble tea shop, and a pair of giant teddy bears, the last being from Seunghyun through Suho. 

“We’re Santa!” yelled Chanyeol.

“There. Pressure’s off a bit,” Suho muttered to Kris, who turned an exasperated glance towards Suho, but wordlessly slid an arm around his back where they sat together on the couch and gave him a brief side-hug, knocking their heads together. Suho felt warmth bloom up from his core, enough to make him giggle. He remembered the last time he’d been this close to Kris, on a small bed watching smoke drift through his lips. He wanted to get closer. Kris looked like he was trying not to grin like an idiot while he watching Ella wrap herself around the teddy bears and roll around on the floor. 

“You’re all terrible,” he said to the room full of grown men fan-girling over Ella’s adorableness. 

“Terrible, Kris,” Xiumin asked, laughing at Kris’s stupidly affectionate smile.

“Terrible.”

Suho leaned his head against Kris’s shoulder before he could stop himself. Kris looked down in surprise. Suho blushed and purposefully took another awkward sip of wine, which he dripped down his chin and had to sit up quickly to wipe off with the back of his hand. Kris was really grinning now.

Suho caught sight of Tao staring him down and left to grab another bottle of wine to save himself from further embarrassment. 

When he returned, he leaned against the doorframe and watched the scene for a moment. Ella, wearing all five scarves, the perfume, and one of Sehun’s bowties, was still hugging her teddy bear and trying to teach Xiumin and Kris a clapping game. They were sitting, looking entirely mystified, leaning over the arms of their chairs with their hands resting haphazardly together and staring at Ella, giggling every few seconds and trying to get it right as all the other drunks in the room tried to help her explain it, even though they didn’t understand it either.

Suho hugged the wine bottle. If someone had told him two months ago that he would have the cold, jerk of a janitor with piercings in his living room at his Christmas party giggling and trying clapping games with Xiumin, he would have told himself to get some help because he was finally cracking under stress. Of course, the same person from two months ago would also have told him that Prince Charming was worth Kyungsoo’s heartbreak. Oops. 

After most of the evening had passed, Ella was asleep in the guest room, and people were dividing up into separate conversations, Kris pulled Suho into the kitchen and said, “I need to ask a favor.”

Suho flapped his mouth like a fish for a couple seconds. “Really? You?”

“Shut up. It’s a big thing, for me.”

“Yeah,” Suho breathed, “What is it?”

“What do you mean, ‘yeah’?”

“You don’t usually ask. I have to force favors on you.”

“I can’t pay for the stupid doll, and I want—I’m asking for help.” 

“Ok. Ok, I’ll to it.”

“Want to go get that on Saturday afternoon?”

“Sure!”

“Right.” Kris stared at his shoes and looked utterly defeated.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Ok.”

“I just feel like a bad father. I worked as hard as I could and just ended up exhausting myself and had to ask for help at the end anyway. I don’t feel like a responsible adult. I was so determined to do this myself.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She just wants it so much. I can’t let her down. It’s like a status symbol at her stupid school. Literally every girl in her class has one. It’s almost like a challenge between parents at this point, and its so stupid. It’s all so stupid and I can’t believe I’ve gotten sucked into it but I can’t even pay for the doll on my own. The assholes are probably going to think I stole it for her, especially if she talks me into getting the stupid blond one.”

Suho broke into the wine-fueled rant. “Those other little girls don’t have fairy god mothers, do they? Well Ella does, and its me. It’s ok.” 

“You’re so cheesy.” 

“Your whine goes well with cheese.” 

“Why are all my friends such idiots?”

“At least we have money, right?”

“You know that’s not why I love you all.” 

Maybe Suho had drunk too much wine again, because he leaned in and hugged Kris tightly. “Shame, because that’s the only reason I love you, the monetary gains.”

Kris chuckled and hugged back. He stayed at Suho’s side for the rest of the evening, clearing the dishes, helping him roust Jongin and Sehun from where they had been found in the broom closet with their clothes half off, and getting them both sober rides home. As Ella sleepily tried to pull on her purple coat to leave, Suho found himself once again leaning with intoxicated affection into Kris’s side as he smiled down at Xiumin pulling Ella’s arm through her sleeve. He nuzzled his Clorox-scented cotton shirt, so different than Seunghyun’s silk shirts that smelled like money and free time.

“You’re kind of drunk, aren’t you?” Kris asked.

“Hmmmm a little.” Over Kris’s shoulder Suho caught Tao giving him a “we will be talking about this later” look at where he was snuggled Kris. Suho suddenly realized that had he been sober he would have classified this as boyfriend behavior. He drew away, guilty. 

 

Seunghyun and Suho went shopping together that Saturday, a split-second decision when they both realized they would be heading down to fifth avenue together. 

“Christmas shopping?” Suho asked.

“No, I’ve finished that. Jiyong decided that I’m hosting the New Years party so I’ve gotta get something nice to wear.”

“Oh, like you don’t have so many nice things already.”

“Something new.”

“Seunghyun, would you let me buy it for you if I asked? You’re always pampering me and I was wondering if you wanted that.”

“No, no. It’s really fine. You don’t need to take care of me. I’ve got it covered.”

Suho thought sourly that he knew Seunghyun had it covered. That’s not what he was asking. Of course Seunghyun didn’t need Suho to take care of him, he had Jiyong for that. 

They walked on for a bit, Suho silent, Seunghyun humming. 

“La Habañera?” Suho recognized from _Carmen_ , one of his favorite operas. Kyungsoo hadn’t been wild about it. Seunghyun’s opera tastes were much closer to Suho’s. 

“Mhm.”

A song about how love will run away when you try to catch it, but find you when you least expect it. Inconvenient. The characters chased each other over the entire plot, getting together, abandoning each other, and then, as Suho remembered, dying in the end. 

Seunghyun lacked his usual attentiveness. Normally, Suho would be bothered, but he knew he was feeling distant as well. “Seunghyun, you’re awfully quiet today.”

Seunghyun startled. “I’m sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“What? You never tell me about your problems.”

“You worry so much. I don’t want you to worry about me.”

“I want to worry about you.”

Seunghyun pulled Suho into a Starbucks and ordered coffee for both of them and then sat them down. “If we’re going to discuss issues we should do it out of the cold.”

Suho couldn’t help but smile. “You’re perfect, Seunghyun. You’re really perfect. You’re kind and funny, intelligent, sweet, thoughtful, polite…I just love taking care of people and I wish I had more to do to take care of you.”

He laughed shortly, “You’re perfect too. You’re so careful and caring, strong, focused, absolutely adorable. You blush and hide behind your hands and smile too much. And you’re so easy to deal with,” he put his coffee cup back down in the saucer, “I kind of wish you made me chase you a little more, that you were harder to deal with. I like taking care of people too, but being taken care of makes me a little uncomfortable.” 

Suho sighed. “Does that mean we’re both dissatisfied? What do we do about it?”

“I don’t know if I’m dissatisfied, I’m just getting used to a different type of relationship than the ones I’m used to. I usually go after crazy chicks, Suho. You’re a new thing for me. I’ve loved it, but it’s a huge change to get used to.”

Maybe that was it. Maybe Suho just needed to get used to it. His mind stirred in resistance, but when he looked at Suho staring at him expectantly with dark chocolate eyes, head on his arms, Suho found that resistance easy to ignore. 

“It’s been less than two months, Suho. We’ve never been anything but happy. Give it time. I don’t think we need to do anything yet.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” They ordered their drinks and settled at a round table by the window. “So what’s bothering you?”

“Huh? Oh, its nothing. Its Jiyong.”

“Oh dear, what about him.”

“He’s in one of these spells where nothing makes him happy and I’m trying to figure out how to get him back to being himself before he seriously hurts someone’s feelings or makes our boss mad.”

“Knock him out. Tie him to a chair and threaten him until he agrees to be decent.”

“Hm. He might enjoy that.”

“Gross. I’m sorry you have to deal with him.”

Seunghyun shifted in his seat. “It’s not so bad. He’s my best friend for a reason. I always manage to bring his usual mood back. Its kind of a fun puzzle to figure out what’s bothering him and fix it without offending him by letting him in on what I’m doing. Solving problems for people who don’t want help. You get that. Isn’t that what you’re doing with Kris right now?”

“Yeah. He's so stubborn. Speaking of, I’m going to meet Kris now. We’re buying Ella a doll. She loved the teddy bears, by the way. Didn’t let go of them the entire evening.”

“Ok, good. I don’t know what to do with kids so I figured giant teddy bears were a safe bet.”

“You were right. Will you walk with me till I meet up with him?” They finished in companionable silence and walked back onto the street. Seunghyun took his hand and let him lead the way. 

They found Kris near a crowded street corner, and he had Ella with him. As Suho subtly tried to ask Kris why she was there when the doll was supposed to be a surprise, Ella jumped down out of his arms and ran to him. Suho dropped Seunghyun’s hand so he could crouch down and let her run into him at full speed, knocking him over onto the sidewalk. 

“Squish! I squished you!” 

“Ella, I’m dying. You’re too much. I’m too old for this.” She tried to tug him to standing, but Kris had to come up and help her. 

“When she does that you’ve got to lean into it,” he said, “and then usually pick her up as she hits you too, otherwise you’ll end up with a concussion.” He gave Seunghyun a curt nod and then let go of Suho’s arms to pick up Ella. “Yixing’s meeting us here to take Ella out for pizza and a trip to the playground.”

“Pizza! I’m going to find buried treasure!”

“In the pizza?” Seunghyun asked.

“No, silly, under the castle.”

“…ah.” 

“Yeah, stupid, under the castle,” Kris said, and then winked at Suho as if he was supposed to find that funny. Suho rubbed his gloved hand over his eyes and then turned to Seunghyun and mouthed ‘sorry.’ Seunghyun was staring back strangely, but he shook his head to say ‘not a problem.’

“Suho, help,” Suho turned back to Kris and saw that Ella had somehow climbed up onto Kris’s shoulder like a cat and was now hanging off his head with no idea how to get down.

“Ella, Ella, hold still, I’m gonna carry you now.” He carefully removed her and held onto her instead as Kris shook out his messed up hair and pulled his worn coat back into place. 

“No, Ella, please don’t climb on me. It’s ok on your dad because he already looks like a stray dog, but I did my hair today.”

“It’s so short. It can’t be that hard to do.”

“It’s not, but if I mess it up it’ll look weird for the rest of the day.” 

Yixing arrived with a guitar case slung over his shoulder, beanie pulled tight over his ears. Suho tried not to stare at his mouth too long, the memory of thick smoke curling off his lips too prominent in his mind. Seunghyun’s presence loomed in his conscience. 

“Ready to go?”

“Pizza! Playground! Singing in the park!”

“Singing?” Suho asked her. 

“Sometimes I sing with Yixing and people give us money.”

“I get more cash when she’s with me,” Yixing said.

Kris nodded. “I lend her out every once in a while.”

“Isn’t that—something just doesn’t seem right about that.”

“We’re destitute, Suho. We do what we can.” 

“I give her a cut of the profits,” Yixing said.

“Daddy says I have to earn my keep if I want to stay in the house.”

“I never said that, Ella. Where did you even pick that up?”

Yixing snickered, “I told her to say that,” and then had to back up fast as both Suho and Kris rounded on him. 

“The PTA will call child services on me, Yixing!”

“Ok, sorry! Won’t do it again!”

Suho was busy tucking Ella into his coat as she did the best to burrow under his scarf. “It’s warm under here,” she said, muffled against his fuzzy sweater. Suho smiled fondly. “Everything is super warm but my back!”

Kris shuffled forward and gave Suho a hug around Ella, who giggled and cheered. Suho tensed up. Seunghyun was _right there_. He struggled away just in time to see Kris and Seunghyun having a stare-off over his head.

“Stop being weird, both of you.” 

“Daddy’s always weird.”

“True,” said Yixing, “but I feel like I’m intruding on something here. Should I just take Ella and leave you three to sort it out?”

“I’m sure that would be fun, but I have to be somewhere soon, so I’ll be leaving,” Seunghyun said. He opened his arms for a hug. “Suho?”

Suho handed Ella back to Kris and stepped in to return the hug, giving him a deep goodbye kiss for good measure. Seunghyun smiled against his mouth and continued to snuggle him for a few seconds after it ended, then pulled away, gave a stony-faced Kris a very jaunty salute and eyebrow wiggle, and then made a show of stuffing his hands in the pockets of his lovely wool coat and skipping away. 

“He’s even weirder than you are,” Kris said to Suho.

“We’re a good match.”

“Uh huh.” 

“Ella, let’s leave Mommy and Daddy here and go find some pizza.”

“Pizza!”

Suho and Kris were left staring each other down, alone on a street corner. 

“The doll?”

“Right.” 

They were the only men in the store. Suho had hoped beyond hope that there would be some other fathers that had been dragged along, or at the very least some very young little brothers, but no, there were none. It was not called American Girl for nothing.

They found the “Truly Me” dolls designed to look like a variety of potential owners. “There’s the one she wants,” Kris said, pointing to one with curly blond hair and brown eyes. 

“And this one over here looks like her,” Suho said. “She’ll like that one more in the long run, and people will tease her if she gets the blond one. Besides, it just wouldn’t feel right to get her the blond one.”

“Why the hell would she even want that one. There’s nothing wrong with the way the black haired doll looks, and there’s nothing wrong with the way she looks. It makes me worried.”

“Kris,” Suho said gently, “the blond doll looks like you.”

“What?”

“Brown eyes and blond hair. You dye your hair. You have no money but you allow yourself that one vanity, remember? What message do you think she’s picking up from that? On our first outing together she asked me to get her hair dyed blond like yours.” 

“Holy shit I’m a terrible father.” Kris sat right down on the floor of the store. A saleswoman came over to ask if they were in the right place. After Suho waved her away with as much courtesy and charm as he could manage, Kris said, “Do you think I should dye my hair back to black?”

“No!” Suho said, a little too quickly, and Kris gave him a suspicious look. “I mean, that doesn’t matter right now. About the dolls, do you ever intend on letting her dye her hair blond?”

“Hell no.”

“Ok. Then we won’t get her the blond doll. Even if she’s slightly disappointed at first she’ll love it anyway and be relieved we got her that one later on.”

“She’ll be disappointed.”

“She’ll be more disappointed later if we reinforce the idea that the blond one is better by buying it for her.” 

Suho bought the doll, and then two matching outfits for the doll and Ella, $115 for the doll, $198 for the clothes, and then tax. “Oh shit, tax. I would’ve forgotten that,” Kris muttered, taking a few steps back to bend over with his hands on his knees to have a moment. 

“Don’t mind him,” Suho said to the very concerned cashier, “He’s just questioning his parenting ability.” 

“Let’s have dinner,” Suho said to Kris.

“Where?”

“Here.” 

“What?”

Ten minutes later Suho looked over at Kris across a very adorable American Girl themed table in a room that was entirely too cheerfully stylized in clean white and black stripes, and lots and lots of flowers. Kris looked like something the cat dragged in: dirty jacket, scruffy blond hair, worn jeans, and work boots. He looked, suddenly, way too young to be a father.

“Suho, you look like you fit right in here.” 

“Are you saying I look like a little girl or a middle-aged mom.”

“The mom…one. Your fancy clothes match the décor.” 

“Have you decided what you want to eat?”

“I’ve decided what I want to drink. I haven’t even looked at the food menu. Why are we here?”

“I thought we’d make the other mothers a little more uncomfortable before we left. I’m surprised we even got a table. I guess it’s a little early for the dinner rush.” 

“It looks pretty crowded to me.”

“Stop acting like you just lost your job and your wife left you. People are staring.”

Kris shifted up off his elbows and flopped back in his seat, kicking his long legs out under the table and tilting his head back tiredly. “Better, Mr. Vice President?”

“Not much, no.” 

They were still the only men in the room besides one very peppy waiter. Suho could sense Kris squirming. He smiled. 

“Why can’t we eat somewhere else?”

“This is me getting you back for being rude to my boyfriend.” 

“I’m leaving.”

“I’m not paying for your food or alcohol anywhere else.”

Right on cue the wine arrived at the table. 

“Why do they even serve alcohol here?”

“Are you kidding? Middle-aged moms chaperoning hysterical little girls are the first Americans reaching for their wine glasses. They’re making bank.” 

Kris finished an entire glass before he spoke again. “I’m sorry about chasing you out of my apartment the other day. Didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Suho felt uncomfortable at just the mention of it. He’d been avoiding the mental image of Yixing and Kris trading smoke since it happened. “Don’t worry about it,” he said gruffly. 

“Yeah. How have you been recently? You zone out and end up looking really freaked out a lot. You mentioned something about having trouble with an ex? I’ll ignore everything you said after that for now, for the sake of your sanity, don’t worry. I mean, maybe I shouldn’t pry, but I feel like we’re always trying to fix my problems and I never get to help you with yours.”

It was Suho’s turn to finish his glass before he spoke, and all he said was, “Its nothing anyone can help me with. Thank you though.” 

Kris shuffled a little. Their appetizer salads arrived, were eaten, and the plates taken away in silence as they listened to the loud squeals and high voices all around them. 

“You ok, Kris?”

“I feel like such a terrible parent.”

“Don’t say that! You’re wonderful!”

“I know. And thank you for saying so because mostly people don’t think I am, just because I’m a twenty-four-year-old man. I should not have a seven-year-old daughter.” 

“And I should not have a top position in a thriving company, and yet here we are.”

“Shut up, Suho.”

“Ok. Sorry.”

“It’s taken me years to figure out how to function as a parent, and the way I do it is so different than everyone else that even though I’m sure I’m doing my best I have to wonder if I’m wrong most of the time. And then you just easily make so much sense. You take her out, you get her fed, buy her clothes. Just downstairs you navigated buying the damn doll so well. I would have crashed and burned even if I had managed to scratch up enough money. I’m pathetic.”

“We both are. Trust me. Just because I haven’t disclosed to you all the panic I’m having about my love life right now doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I am absolutely pathetic.”

“I know. I’ve only been around you for a couple months and I already know how hopeless you are when it comes to your love life. I said, early on, that you wouldn’t know what true affection was even if it tried to drown you and I hold to that. You’ve only proved my point since then.” Kris’s eyes were dangerously soft. Suho couldn’t let himself think about the implications behind that. Too dangerous. He shifted around in his seat, wondering if getting up and running out of a crowded doll store restaurant because he didn’t want to face Kris as an actual romantic possibility counted as making a scene.

He chose to turn the conversation. “Well, look at us, two grown ass men getting drunk in the American Girl restaurant, commiserating about our problems instead of going to the bar like any responsible adult, and we're trying to figure out who’s more pathetic.”

“Pass me the wine.”

 

Seunghyun spent Christmas with Jiyong and company, which left Suho alone in his house on Christmas Eve texting Tao, who had to deal with his lovely family and was intent on whining about it. Suho would have loved to deal with his family, but Dad’s side was negotiating a merger at a meeting in Vienna at that moment and Mom was away on an anniversary in Tahiti. At midnight, right after he asked himself why he was still awake, he decided to open Christmas presents because, technically, it was Christmas morning. He tried not to think too much about the one time he’d done the same thing with Kyungsoo.

Tao had not bought him socks that year. He’d bought him a set of crystal martini glasses. His father had given him socks. “Thanks Dad,” he muttered, and then opened a new camera from his mom and dad as a joint gift. The joke became clear when he got a single necktie from his mother. He’d asked them on the year previous not to be as extravagant as a month long vacation again, worried that their next gift might be a house. 

The office had pooled their funds to buy him a new personal laptop, since his old one was ancient but he couldn’t justify buying a new one without provocation. 

Seunghyun had gotten him a beautiful, elegant watch with diamonds studding the face and around the edge, with matching cuff links and tie clip. Suho squealed and flopped around on the couch for a bit. He’d gotten Seunghyun a silver pocket watch, a perfect exchange. 

He lay on his back and stared at the watch around his wrist for a while. It was perfect, exactly the gift Prince Charming was supposed to give, exactly what Suho always imagined himself receiving. Perfect. He lowered the watch down and rested the smooth, flat surface against his lips until the cool glass warmed up and matched his skin. Suho didn’t want perfect. His imaginary Prince Charming had never felt more distant. He reached over to the table and picked up the wrapped present from Kris. 

A leather wallet. Cheeky. Quality. He’d given Kris a new coat. 

Wallet, or a watch with cuff links and a tie clip. He reached into a drawer of the living room table and pulled out framed tickets to the opera, a gift from Kyungsoo, box seats in a time when Kyungsoo had been broke. 

Wallet, watch, tickets. The choice should have been obvious. One a clever joke, one long since used and expired, one a dream, but when he opened the wallet there was a picture of Ella. 

 

Suho’s phone woke him around ten in the morning where he lay stiffly there on the couch. “Mrmhello?”

“THANK YOU SO MUCH!”

“Mwrahhwah?”

“SHE’S BEAUTIFUL!”

The phone couldn’t properly handle the decibels at the other end. “Who?”

“Ohmygod THANK YOU. YOU’RE THE BEST FAIRY GOD MOTHER EVER!”

Ah. Ella. “you’rewelcomesweetiewhattimeisit?”

Kris’s laugh entered the phone. “It’s after ten, honey. How late were you up?”

“huurggh too late.”

“Well, we’re coming over there to thank you properly. We’ll be there in about a half hour.”

“ok.” Suho fell right back to sleep on the couch until he was woken again by the doorbell. 

“ack.” 

Suho had just enough time to register that Kris was wearing his new coat, black leather with subtle designs, and his face lit up, and then Ella shrieked and made a real attempt to tackle him to the floor from knee height. He swept her up into his arms, doll and all, and carried her into the apartment as she gripped his neck nearly hard enough to choke. “She’s beautiful. Yixing says I need to name her MechElla but Dad says that’s dumb. He wants me to name her Ella 2.0. I want to name her Sarah but I thought I’d ask you first because you’re my Mommy now!”

“I am? Thank you! I’m so honored!”

“I’m just glad I haven’t been replaced completely,” Kris said, peeling his coat off. “This,” he said, holding it up, “is awesome. It’s so warm.” He gazed around the living room as Suho helped Ella arrange Sarah MechElla 2.0 comfortably in her own chair. “You’ve already opened all your gifts, I see.” 

“Yeah, at midnight last night.” 

“Wow. You look like you slept out here.”

“I did.”

“I see the office gift, and Tao’s. Are those cuff links with a matching tie clip?”

“They came with the watch,” Suho said, holding it out.

“Prince Charming?”

“Yeah,” he said, not capable of holding back the fond smile.

“Wow. Are those diamonds?”

“They are.” 

Ella leapt on the watch. “whoa. I’ve never seen diamonds before.”

“Yes you have. You were playing with my grandmother’s brooch with those scarves at the party a few days ago. That has diamonds on it.”

“What?!” Kris and Ella yelled at once. Then he yelled “And you let her play with it?” as she screamed, “I’m a princess!” Suho just laughed. 

“I don’t see the wallet I gave you,” Kris said reproachfully. 

Suho had a nasty feeling that he knew where it was. Sure enough, there is was in the couch cushions alongside the missing BluRay remote and the framed tickets. “Sorry about that. I, erm, fell asleep holding it last night. Must’ve shoved these down there by accident.”

Kris snickered and sat down on the couch looking too pleased even for sarcasm. “Fell asleep holding it, huh. What’s the other one? Framed tickets?”

“To Mozart’s _The Magic Flute_ at the Met three years ago. From Kyungsoo.”

Kris hesitated. “The ex?” 

Suho nodded. 

“You ever going to tell me what happened with him?”

Shame turned heavily in his stomach. Kris had told him he was hopeless with love. He didn’t know that half of it. “Maybe someday.” 

They played house for a while with Ella, posing Sarah around the room and dressing her in Suho’s various scarves, helping her with imaginary homework or tucking her for a nap. Kris sat back and let Suho do most of the work, running around after Ella and finding her new props to use. Kris jumped in every few minutes to help out and play the Dad. Suho was the mother and Sarah and Ella were sisters.

“Half-sisters,” she said, “Because Suho is not my real Mom, but Daddy and Suho got Sarah together, so both of you are her real parents. We share one. Half-sisters.”

“How do you know this stuff?” Suho asked, “You’re seven.” 

“Hailey told me all about it because her mom is getting married again.”

“Friend from daycare,” Kris clarified. 

“Wow,” Suho said, “We have a kid. Buy me dinner first. Jeez.” 

“You’ve done that enough already, sweetheart,” Kris said, throwing an arm over Suho’s shoulders and yanking him half across his body. 

Suho hid his giggle with his nervous hands up in front of his face as he tried to lean his head far enough back against Kris’s chest to see his face. Kris smiled that gorgeous full smile from way back on the night Suho hit his head in the office, and Suho’s breath died halfway out his throat. He turned slowly around under Kris’s arm to get closer even as it faded into something softer and sweeter, but no less breathtakingly happy. Suho smiled back, cheek nuzzled up against Kris's shirt, his heartbeat right against Suho's ear. 

“Let’s give Mommy and Daddy some space,” Ella said to Sarah in a stage whisper and carried her from the room.

Suho pulled back immediately, embarrassed, and they sat quietly next to each other and listened to the clock ticking. 

“Lunch time?” Suho asked.

Suho started preparing sandwiches, peanut butter and jelly for Ella, and some avocado and turkey thing for him and Kris. Kris ate half the avocado with his hands before it went on the sandwich. “It’s been years since I’ve eaten any of these,” he said, and moaned sensually around his long fingers as he slid down the fridge. 

Suho looked towards the heavens and prayed for the strength to not get turned on. The strength didn’t come. Kris hovered behind Suho, assembling the sandwiches as Suho prepared the ingredients. It was comfortably domestic, and not in any way that Kyungsoo had been, but something entirely new and safe and so easy. Suho couldn’t help but smile when Kris made a couple mini-sandwiches for Sarah. So much for the tough leather jacket, dyed hair, and earrings. No saving his reputation now. He was a kid right alongside Ella. Suho wanted to pinch his cheeks, wrap his arms around his waist, and never let go. He settled for stretching his arm up to ruffle his hair as he walked past to the table with the sandwiches. Kris looked adorably offended and tried to inconspicuously fix his hair in the reflection of Suho’s China cabinet.

Ella smeared peanut butter and Jelly all over Sarah’s face mid-meal, which sent Kris into probably the sweetest panic Suho had ever seen, full of pleading and mini-sandwich confiscation. Sehun put away the sandwich fixings and washed the dishes as Kris and Ella washed Sarah’s face in the bathroom. Suho heard Ella start singing Sarah to sleep in the guest bedroom and smiled. Kris came up beside him and gave him a hug, one hand skating across his back and the other across his ribcage, and Suho had to put the plate and sponge down in the sink to keep from dropping them.

“I don’t think Ella and I have ever been this happy,” Kris murmured, “Thank you so much.” Suho had lost count of how many times Kris had murmured that at him, had long since stopped feeling flustered and pleased when he did, and now just felt satisfied, like he’d done his job well. He couldn’t remember what it was like to think Kris was a jerk, to find those eyebrows intimidating. He felt his long arms and wide chest, the brush of his cheek against his hair. Suho glanced to the side and saw those beautiful lips, remembered, again, smoke flowing between them, Yixing’s mouth suspended just inches above.

And it was just so natural for Suho to turn his head and pull on Kris’s shirt with one wet hand, so natural for Suho to press his lips to Kris’s, to feel Kris breathe in deep against his mouth, arms tightening. His heart expanded unbearably, all light heat like he could float away. Kris pulled Suho’s chest to his and pinned him against the counter. Suho’s hands left wet prints on Kris’s chest and he felt Kris’s hand in his hair, the other so warm on his lower back. Against his mouth, Kris’s chapped lips moved in a kiss so slow and gentle, but so deep. Suho felt more than heard his own moan deep in his chest. Kris smelled different this close, more like Ella and less like Clorox, still so different than Seunghyun, money and free time. 

Seunghyun. Suho’s eyes snapped open and he pulled away and lurched to the side to escape, drying hands over his lips. “Oh no, Seunghyun. I haven’t broken up with Seunghyun. Oh my god I don’t want to break up with Seunghyun.” 

“Jesus Christ, Suho, what?”

“I’m so sorry,” Suho stumbled into his bedroom and lay down on the floor.

“Suho!”

“What’s wrong with Mommy?”

“Mommy is being a confusing, conflicted little shit right now, but he’ll be fine.” 

“Kris, I’m sorry.”

“For what? For kissing me?” 

“No! Yes? I should have broken up with Seunghyun first. He doesn’t deserve this.”

“Mommy kissed you?”

“Fuck that guy. Not Mommy. Mommy’s boyfriend.”

“No! Don’t fuck him. I mean don’t say that. Or fuck him either.” 

“Suho,” Kris laughed, a little exasperated, and knelt over him. “Just break up with him next time you see him.”

“Its not that easy. I don’t want to.”

“It’ll have to be that easy, because it’s either him or me. You can’t have both. That’s not how it works. And after that kiss I will not be letting you go very easily. Who do you want more?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what I want.”

“Suho, don’t do this to me.”

“I’m so sorry. All I ever do is hurt everyone.”

“No,” Kris pulled Suho half up off the floor and into an awkward hug in his lap. “no you don’t. Don’t say that.”

“Sarah and I love you.”

“I love you both too, Ella,” Suho whimpered.

“Can I get you off the floor?”

“Please don’t. I can deal with myself alone. Maybe you should go.”

“I am not fucking leaving until I know what’s going on. Why did you kiss me?” 

“Kris, please!”

Kris groaned heavily and pulled Suho closer, leaning back against the dresser and dragging him up to lie sideways across his chest. Suho tried to keep face hidden, didn’t open his eyes or move his hands away from his face. “Suho,” Kris murmured, “You are wonderful. I haven’t been this happy in eight years. You’re silly, clumsy, sometimes selfish, and sometimes pathetic, but you are also kind, attentive, thoughtful, smart, driven, loving, and so fucking cute that I can’t stand it. I want this so bad. I’ve wanted you since crush week a month and half ago. I thought it was hopeless. I know I’m not Prince Charming. I can’t buy you fancy watches or talk to you about opera. I can’t work a suit like Seunghyun or drive a nice car, but I promise I will give you all of me the same way I do with Ella. That’s all I have to offer and I really hope its enough.”

Suho raised his head to look at Kris, not caring that Kris could see the tears on his face. “Give me a minute,” he whispered, and then stood up and walked into the living room where he took off the watch and put it on the table beside the wallet and the tickets, and then sat in a chair across the room. Kris stood in the doorway for a minute, then walked slowly up to the table, and while staring Suho dead in the eye, put the watch on like a challenge and slouched against the couch like a petulant teenager. 

Suho realized he was not in the least offended or flustered and actually thought it was kind of hilarious. The watch looked hot as hell sliding down his long wrist to get caught against his wide hand.

He was about to dump Prince Charming as suddenly as he’d dumped Kyungsoo with no proof that it was for any better of a reason except that this man wearing Seunghyun’s beautiful gift was something his heart definitely wanted so much it physically ached, him and his precious daughter.

“I want you, Kris. It’s just, the last time a broke up with someone it was the worst decision I ever made and it hurt us both so badly.”

“What does Seunghyun have that I don’t, and I know I already answered that, but besides the things that come with money, which you don’t need, what does he have that I don’t?”

“You make a compelling argument.”

“Now what do I have that he doesn’t?”

Ella, for one, but also domesticity, and the powerful sense of happiness he hadn’t known since his last years with Kyungsoo before he was an idiot and decided that wasn’t enough. 

“And you don’t just want me because I buy you nice things?” Suho asked, “because that would make you no better than me.”

Kris put his hand to his heart in mock offense, the watch sliding down his arm. “Suho, I resist your help at all opportunity. Its not my fault you keep offering it. If you lost all your money tomorrow, I’d just ask you to move in with us. You could watch Yixing and I smoke all the time.” He wiggled his eyebrows. 

There was no resisting. “I’ll break up with Seunghyun tomorrow. I’m not doing it on Christmas.”

“Does that mean I can’t kiss you again?”

“Not today.”

That did not stop them from piling into a warm cuddle pile with Sarah that evening on the guest best and drifting off to sleep with their foreheads pressed together. If Suho woke up in the middle of the night, panicked over breaking up with someone again, Kris was never to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please give me feedback!
> 
> Come visit me at [tumblr](http://ginforink.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/Ginforink).


	6. Chapter 6

Suho didn’t think his hands should be shaking that much. Couldn’t be natural. He was about to drop his expensive coffee. It was a gorgeously cold, still December 26th, the streets as calm as they ever got, and he’d asked Seunghyun to meet him at his favorite coffee shop, the huge glass front of the building catching the wintry sunlight in a way that would be calming and beautiful if Suho weren’t so absolutely terrified of the oncoming conversation. 

Seunghyun looked tired, which made Suho feel even worse about calling him out at 11:00 in the morning on the day after Christmas. “You ok there?”

“So hungover, Suho. You have no idea what peppermint vodka shots can do.”

“Jiyong went a little crazy then?”

Seunghyun nodded slowly, eyes on his coffee, expression vaguely shell-shocked.

Suho cleared his throat, “I’m really sorry about calling you out here today. I’ll get right to the point. I, um, kissed Kris yesterday.”

Seunghyun’s head came up, all surprise, then said “huh!’ and leaned back in his seat. “You did.” He huffed out a quick sigh. “Ok. Well then I don’t feel quite as bad about what I did last night.”

“What did you do, Seunghyun?”

“I let Jiyong blow me.” 

Suho let that sink in for a moment. “Well crap.” Even though Suho was probably a bit more hurt than he ought to be, considering his own actions, a bit more disappointed and bitter than he would have predicted, he also couldn’t help but snicker a little. “Jiyong. Should have seen that coming, really. The way he hangs off you and the way he treats me.”

“You were right. He really doesn’t like you. I’m still kicking myself for not picking up on that sooner. We’ve had this, I don’t know, tension? Like, forever. And he finally told me what was what last night and then acted on it. I was planning to break up with you tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

“Well, I got there first, I guess.”

Seunghyun smiled a little sadly and cautiously sipped his hot coffee. “I’m glad you’ll be with Kris. I knew I was probably going to lose you even before yesterday because of seeing you with him and Ella the other day. He really loves you. I can’t compete with what you three have.” Well, how nicely these things tie together sometimes.

They sat drinking coffee for a minute, surprisingly comfortable. 

“Thank you for the pocket watch, by the way,” Seunghyun said, pulling it out of his pocket, “It’s beautiful. I’d understand if you want it back though. What I did was pretty despicable.”

“No, no. I bought it for you. Keep it. I’m keeping my watch after all.” He pulled up his sleeve a little to show that he was wearing it, though it had taken quite a fight to get it off Kris that morning. “Wish I could have kept you long enough to get more nice things like this.”

Seunghyun laughed. “I would have liked that. Jiyong is going to be so difficult to do nice things for. He’s such a contrarian, and so controlling.”

“Have fun.”

“I will. I like a challenge. And you have someone you can take care of better than me. We both have what we want. It’s going to be a weird switch though, going from being the perfect boyfriend for someone so easy to take care of to trying to deal with that hot mess every day.” He smiled affectionately.

Suho sighed. “Do you know Kris calls you Prince Charming? Even before we started dating he mocked me about trying to find Prince Charming, and then I actually found you and he still acted like you didn’t exist.”

Seunghyun snickered, “Maybe I shouldn’t have egged him on the first time we met at your work.”

Suho leaned forward, “What did you say? He won’t tell me. I’ve asked, like five times. Ok, twice, but I’m so curious!”

“Well, he was being suspiciously territorial, but he also said something nasty like ‘Stay away from my daughter, fucking Prince Charming,’ which I assumed meant me, ‘coming to pick up sleeping beauty,’ and some other insulting things about how you’d listen when I wanted you to go home but wouldn’t pay attention to the rest of the people in the office that, quote, ‘actually care about you.’ And I told him he was just jealous, and he should take his head out of his ass and see that.”

“That’s pretty cute. No wonder he wouldn’t tell me what you said.” 

“I’m just disappointed that he took his head out of his ass and now I’m on the losing end.”

“Dude, you let Jiyong blow you.”

“Yeah I’m definitely the one in the wrong here.” 

“I mean, kind of. I’m the one that was basically using you to fulfill my dumb fantasies while I really wanted something else. I guess that counts as leading you on.”

“Nah. We both had fun. It’s been a good couple months.” 

“I’m worried about facing Kyungsoo after this. I ditched him for a fantasy and then ditched the fantasy as soon as I found you and went back to wanting what I had with him.”

“Well, you don’t have to come to my parties anymore, (“shame,” Suho interrupted) so you don’t actually have to face him about this.”

“Then I’m worried about never seeing him again.” 

Seunghyun patted his arm sympathetically. “Go home and let Kris comfort you.”

“Haven’t told Kris about the whole Kyungsoo dilemma. I probably will eventually.” 

Seunghyun looked disapproving, but said nothing, and they spent a few more easy minutes in silence before Suho stood. “I should probably get back to my husband and daughter now.” 

Seunghyun laughed, “And I should probably get back to Jiyong. He doesn’t know I’m here,” and stood up to give Suho one last kiss on the forehead. Suho let himself enjoy it and then headed home.

 

Yixing and Ella were out conning Christmas tourists out of their money. Kris and Suho had the apartment to themselves.

“Netflix and chill?” Kris asked. 

“Oh I figured we’d go grocery shopping,” Suho said. Kris looked like he might throw something. “I’m kidding. What do you want to watch?”

They settled in close on the couch for a nice afternoon in front of some nameless Christmas action movie. Suho leaned in under Kris’s arm. “How was Seunghyun.” 

“He was really hungover, which was funny because he cheated on me.”

“No. Are you serious? Both of you? Beautiful karma. With whom?”

“His best friend. Another producer.” 

Kris had one hand trailing easily over Suho’s arm, coming up every once and a while to rub across his chest. “Wow. Both of you in the same night. Not such a fairy tale relationship after all.”

“No, I guess not. It’s a shame though. I was really convinced I had everything I wanted in life for a few weeks there. Then _someone_ had to come mess it up,” he said, bumping their clasped hands against Kris’s leg. His hand looked tiny under Kris’s. 

“I guess I shouldn’t feel too hurt about it, since I cheated on him too, but jeez, the more space I get from it, the worse it feels. Like, wow, its prince charming and he’s perfect, and everything about the relationship is perfect, and then, bam, he hooks up with someone else.” Kris was slowly unbuttoning Suho’s flannel shirt and mouthing at his hair. “What if I hadn’t had you? Fairy tale relationship over and I’m back to two dates a week trying to find a Prince Charming that won’t cheat on me.” Or maybe he’d have gone to beg forgiveness from Kyungsoo. 

“I’m glad this worked out so well, but it could have just as easily—“ he cut off with a gasp as Kris ran a hand under his shirt and gently pinched his nipple. Suho jerked, eyes sliding closed. “…it just as easily could’ve been horrible,” he slurred through a groan. Kris chuckled.

“We can always talk about that later,” Kris said, “But right now we only have so much time before Ella comes back. Please let me distract you.”

“I’m very hard to distract.”

“I’ll manage.” 

He brought Suho’s face up to his and slid his tongue over his lips. Their second kiss. It was perfectly easy. Suho immediately opened up, bringing a hand up to Kris’s face and gripping at the forearm on his chest. Kris used the leverage to move Suho up the couch and straddle his hips, kissing across his cheekbone and down to his ear, one hand still petting along his side. Suho moaned softly as Kris bit lightly at his neck. Something exploded onscreen and Suho yelped. Kris sat up to turn it off.

“I kind of regret that we had to break up, you know?”

“Suho.”

“No, listen.”

“I will not,” he said, and pushed Suho’s shirt off his shoulders, ignoring Suho’s frown in favor of gazing at his chest, eyes glazed over. He ducked down to suck at Suho’s nipple, a hand teasing at the other, and Suho moaned and felt his chest lift a little off the couch, hands in Kris’s hair.

“I kind of regret it, because,” he broke off to gasp as Kris started rhythmically flicking his tongue, “he’s a really cool dude, just to hang out with. Ha-ahhohgod. He knows a lot about modern art and he’s weird! He’s really funny. And his friends throw,” he had to stop and pant, hands twisting in Kris’s beautiful blond hair, “His friends throw the best parties and I’m going to miss those how did you know this is, like, my favorite thing during foreplay?”

“Is it?”

“Yeah,” he broke off with a deep gasp as Kris flicked fingers lightly over both nipples at once and he arched up into it, neck aching as he pressed his head back hard against the arm rest. “You’re so…good at this.” 

“Thanks. The ex-girlfriend loved it too.”

“Turn off.” 

“Scuse me? You’re talking about your ex while I’m doing my best down here. I’m allowed to talk about mine.”

“You challenged me. I’m hard to distract.”

“I’m succeeding pretty well.”

“So Seunghyun and I didn’t even talk about being friends after the breakup, because—oh jeez never stop doing that, just don’t— …because that never works. It’s a stupid concept to even think about, but I can’t help but think that,” he paused. Kris had started moving slowly down his abs, mouthing at them, and Suho couldn’t understand why he would stop. He wasn’t going to do any distracting down there, and he needed to get back to his nipples right now. “I can’t help but think that maybe we could make ‘just friends’ kind of work. We were only together for, like, two months after—”

“Suho, remember that one time when you stayed overnight at work and were still there the next morning, and you took a shower there right after I came in.”

“Yeah,” Suho grunted, because Kris’s hands were running distractingly up and down his sides.

“I remember you coming out of the bathroom without any shirt on, and just you, starched up, stick-in-the-mud Suho who never swears and apologizes for his employees’ workplace indecorum, standing there in the middle of your office wearing half a suit with a body so hot it couldn’t possibly belong to you, was the sexiest thing I had seen since I was thirteen and my summer-camp girlfriend took off her shirt for the first time.” 

Kris opened Suho’s belt buckle and Suho couldn’t remember how to breath.

“I knew you were handsome as all hell, Suho, with that face, and adorable, but I had never pegged you for sexy before. I had to go clean the bathrooms so I wouldn’t be hard when everyone else came in.” He pulled Suho’s pants down his thighs. Suho shifted to help him.

“Are you distracted, Suho?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He brought his mouth down to Suho’s dick and gave him an open-mouthed kiss through his briefs, running his thumbs along the sensitive lines along his hips, following them down under the elastic band. Suho whimpered. 

“Will you let me fuck you?”

Suho swallowed “Yes.”

“Are you sure? We haven’t even been on a date yet.”

“What, you don’t count the American Girl store?”

Kris snorted. 

“I’m not a prude, Kris. I had a four-year relationship once. I love sex. I think there’s been tension between us long enough. Please get on with it.

“Besides,” he said as Kris pulled his briefs off and licked slowly up his dick, “I want to see if,” he moaned, “you’re better than Seunghyun.”

Kris abruptly stopped, “Oh my god please stop talking about Seunghyun.”

Suho snickered, “I like how jealous you get. The way you acted when we all met up the other day? Disgusting. But really cute.” 

“Cute? Watching you kiss him felt like getting stabbed.” Suho gasped a little, heart seizing. Kris continued, “I could stop right now, you know.”

Suho hesitated, but decided to call his bluff. “Ok. I’ll go back in my room and finish with my toys and you can sit out here, watch Netflix, and listen.”

“Shit.” 

“Please put my dick back in your mouth.”

“Ok.”

He licked once around the head and then swiftly sucked Suho halfway down, Suho nearly choked on his own throat and held his breath as Kris established a rhythm, one hand squeezing around the base. Suho’s hands tugged restlessly at the pillows around his head. “Ack, teeth Kris.” 

“Sorry, this is hard.”

“Astute observation.”

“I don’t mean your dick, stupid. My neck hurts and my mouth is too small for this.” 

Suho giggled, “Your mouth is perfect. You look so hot.” 

Kris smirked and went slowly back down, never breaking eye contact, smolder intense and Suho gasped and looked away, reeling. 

“Speaking of looking hot,” Kris murmured against the head, and Suho looked back down to see Kris still staring up at him. Kris blinked sluggishly and sucked him back down, tongue tracing patterns along the back of his cock, flicking into the slit, his cheeks hollowing as he sucked tightly and Suho moaned with every breath, short and high. 

After a few minutes Suho realized he was dizzy and pushed Kris’s forehead until he got off. “Water,” he gasped, “Room is spinning.” 

Kris grinned and went to the kitchen, coming back to Suho breathing deeply with an arm over his face. “Here you go,” he said, handing him the water and helping him sit up. “Want to take this to your bedroom? This couch is not long enough for both of us, especially me. I’m gonna get cramps.” 

“Yeah. Sorry. That was awesome. You need to do that, like, all the time.”

“Really? I’ve only done that, like, twice before.”

“When? You keep mentioning girls.”

“Once in high school, once with Yixing.”

Suho spit his water back out. Kris looked sheepish. “It was right after Ella’s mother left and we were high. Only happened once.”

“Don’t you dare pull a Seunghyun on me and get with your best friend.”

“God no! Gross! It took months to get our friendship back to not feeling weird.”

“And yet you still practically make out with him when he smokes weed.”

“No I don’t. I have to get high somehow because I can’t pay for it. And our lips never touch. Well, almost never.”

“Kris!”

“Bedroom?”

“Yes. Why are you still wearing clothes?”

“Um…”

“Off.” 

Kris stood up and stripped to his boxers, quickly and efficiently, throwing his clothes on the rug. Suho found it hard to care with miles and miles of long limbs bare in front of him. He stood and gripped Kris close, kissing at one collarbone, fingers drifting over the flat planes of his back. 

“You’re so skinny.”

“I don’t always eat.”

Suho pulled him towards the bedroom, muttering, “You will now.”

As Suho dug around in the top drawer of his dresser for the lube Kris came up behind him and grabbed Suho’s ass under the hem of the flannel shirt still trailing from Suho’s arms. Suho dropped everything and rested his head against the dresser, just enjoying the drag of Kris’s fingers under his ass, his huge palms warm with gentle friction. Kris’s fingers ran between his cheeks and he shivered. 

“Condoms?” he gasped.

“Shit. Still in the living room.”

“Go get ‘em.”

“Ok.”

Kris disappeared and Suho retrieved the lube and climbed on the bed, stripping the blankets away and lying down on the sheets. Kris returned and crawled between his legs, holding up the condom. Suho handed him the lube. “Right,” Kris said. “This stuff.”

Suho took it back. “I’ll do it.”

“What, you don’t trust me?”

“Not when you act like have no idea what to do.” 

“Let me try! I’ve done it once.”

“Once.”

“Yeah, with Yixing.”

“Jeez, how far did you two go?”

“He rode me.”

“Nice. How was it?”

“Awkward as fuck. Can I finger you now?”

“Ok, but if you hurt me I’m taking over.”

“Fair.”

Kris coated his fingers and then dropped one down to rub gently against Suho’s hole, pushing gently. 

“Just do it.”

“Ok, sorry.” Kris pushed his middle finger in slowly, and it seemed to take forever. Suho sighed gently when Kris began thrusting. “Sounds gross,” he whispered. 

“It’s just gonna get worse, Kris. Get used to it.”

Kris laughed and leaned forward, licking gently over a nipple. Suho moaned, reached up, and tugged his fingers through Kris’s hair, who laughed a little against his skin and slowly added another finger. Suho gasped and tensed, whimpering. His arms clutched Kris’s head close to his chest. Those fingers were so big. Kris stilled. “Shh, relax baby.”

Suho wrinkled his nose, “Baby?” His voice came out wobbly.

“Honey, sweetheart, darling, sugar. Which do you want?”

“Baby’s fine. I’m just being difficult.”

“Yes you are. Relax.” 

Suho took a moment, and then relaxed his grip on Kris’s skull, who pulled back to keep licking across his chest, sucking gently, and began slowly scissoring his fingers. The burn levelled out into something nicer, and Suho scratched absently as Kris’s hair, let his moans begin bubbling back up through his throat. 

Kris paused a moment and grabbed a pillow, pulled up hard with the fingers inside Suho to prompt him to lift his hips, and shoved the pillow under him. Kris had much more room to move, and he made beautiful use of it, twisting and sliding, thrusting until Suho moaned breathily and whimpered, legs shaking. Kris crooked his fingers around, searching, and Suho gritted his teeth, rocking to help him find it, and then yelped when his fingers pressed full on his prostate, eyes flying open. “Oh god, Kris, holy shit right there.” 

Kris groaned. “You just swore! I love it. Do it again,” he ordered, fingers circling hard over the spot. 

Suho jerked and whined, cheeks heating up, hands coming nervously over his mouth. “Not now that you’ve told me to, I won’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s embarrassing.” 

Kris pushed a third finger in and thrust slowly, fingers angled pointedly away from his prostate. Suho gasped at the stretch, trying to get away and push back at the same time. His prostate ached for attention. He felt precome drip onto his stomach. “Kris, Kris, put your fingers back, eughhh, put them back. Please Kris, please, just please,”

Kris laughed, “So you’ll beg, but you won’t swear.”

“Fuck, Kris!”

Kris moaned and twisted his fingers to jab quickly at his prostate. Suho cried out and dropped a hand down to clutch at Kris’s wrist and hold him still for a moment. Kris looked up at him, eyes wide. “You ok?”

Suho’s voice came out in a sob, the fingers still pressed tight to his prostate, he carefully shifted back and little and tried again, “I was gonna…um. You should let me cool down for a minute.”

“Ah.”

“Just get your dick out.”

“I was going to use four fingers first. I’m kind of big.”

Suho flopped back down on the pillows. “I’m going to die. Your hotness is going to kill me and I’m going to die in my own apartment. Tomorrow the autopsy will come back saying I got finger-fucked to death and everyone will blame Seunghyun because he just broke up with me. You’ve ruined his life. How does it feel?”

“Pretty good actually.”

“I’m dead, Kris!” 

Kris twisted his hand, circling his fingers around Suho’s prostate and Suho let out another long moan.

“Do another.”

Kris pushed in a fourth finger, kind of awkwardly, and thrust slowly, scissoring outwards.

“Feels good. Put your dick in me.”

“Are you sure.”

“Very.”

Kris took his hand away and Suho’s ass clenched uncomfortably. He wrinkled his nose. Kris pulled his boxers off.

He wasn’t kidding about being big. Before he could control himself, Suho whimpered a little. Kris looked up and smirked. “You know what they say about men with big hands.” 

“How do you want me?”

“This is fine. Plenty of time to get weird with it later.” He winked. Suho blushed and covered his face.

“You get embarrassed by the strangest things,” Kris said while rolling the condom on. “One minute you’re completely unashamed of the gross lube noises and how you use toys, and then you’re getting all flustered about sex positions and swearing.”

“For the last time, put your dick in my butt.” 

Kris slicked up, pushed Suho’s thighs back, lined up, and thrust the head slowly in. There was too much. Suho’s entire lower abdomen burned fuller and fuller. He felt all the muscles in his back stringing taught, body arched and tense. He heard a desperate high keening sound that must have been him. “Shh,” Kris said, “You have to relax,” 

There was no room for relaxing. Someone had just shoved a pole up his ass. “Suho, breathe.” 

 

He shoved all the air out of his lungs at once and then dragged another breath back in. The burn faded a little. He kept breathing, releasing all his muscles one by one until he lay boneless and limp across the sheets. He opened his eyes and found Kris’s face right above his, brows drawn together with effort, sweat shining on his face. “You ok?” he asked, voice strained. 

“Yeah, one minute.”

Kris gave a choked-off moan and dropped his head onto Suho’s shoulder. “So tight. So fucking tight. I’m gonna die too, Suho. You’re crushing my dick.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s good, you just need to relax more. When you tensed up I thought I was about to pass out.” 

Suho breathed some more, and when the pain was gone and just a wonderful ache remained, he shifted his hips a little. Kris groaned and thrust forward slightly. 

“Wait, is there still more?”

“Yeah, I’m not all the way in yet.” 

“Holy Jesus.”

“Don’t bring him into this.”

“You’re terrible.”

“Can I start yet?”

“Yeah, go.”

He pumped his hips experimentally forward and Suho struggled to stay relaxed, hands coming up to grip Kris’s forearms beside his head. He started a steady rhythm, and each long drag had Suho panting, not moaning so much as squeaking. Kris slowed down and drew each pull and push out longer, giving Suho a chance to breath.

He closed his eyes and just felt each long slide pushing deeper and deeper into him, bringing his moans back to a manageable volume, until he felt his hips touch his ass. “Suho,” Kris murmured and Suho looked up into Kris’s face, his eyes closed, mouth hanging open, completely lost in the pleasure of it. 

“Kris,” he moaned, and Kris opened his eyes and looked down at him, “You’re beautiful.”

Kris smiled, warm and pleased, and picked up the pace a little, and Suho pulled his mouth down to crush their lips together, licking deep and filthy into his mouth. Kris dropped onto his elbows, shoved Suho’s hips up to compensate, and the new angle had him pushing powerfully along Suho’s prostate. Suho threw his head back against the pillow, nearly biting Kris’s nose, who jerked back just in time, and _wailed_. 

“Fuck, Suho, Jesus,” Kris gasped, thrusting faster just to feel Suho convulse beneath him, flopping uselessly back on the bed and moaning pitifully, no longer sensible to anything but the fast pressure between his hips, the aching pleasure of his prostate. “I’m gonna come really fast if you keep making noises like that,” Kris said. Suho didn’t have any mind to stop. 

“Holy shit, Suho, you’re crying.” He kissed the tears gently off Suho’s cheeks, still pumping powerfully inside him, and Suho squeezed his arms around Kris’s wide shoulders, rocking back in tiny motions against Kris’s thrusts, sobbing moans filling his chest.

They stayed like that for a few long minutes, Suho’s arms locked tightly around Kris’s shoulders, holding him close, until he whined, “touch me, please, I’m so close, you have to, please,”

“Suho, if I pick either of my arms up I will fall on you. You have to do it.”

Suho growled, but dragged a hand down his body to his dick. He gasped and arched when he grabbed it, and thrust into his fist in time with Kris’s thrusts, slowly matching the rhythm and jerking his hand in time with his hips. 

“Fuckin gorgeous,” Kris murmured low in Suho’s ear between pants, “you’re so fucking perfect like this. I’ve thought about doing this, so many times, imagined you under me, imagined you so sexy and fucked out. Never did it justice. You’re too hot. You’re too good at this. Should’ve fucked you open so long ago across the conference table after hours, stripped that perfect suit away and sucked your pretty cock down my throat—“ 

Suho came so suddenly he nearly blacked out. Kris very nearly whimpered as Suho tightened down around him, pushing in deep and grinding there until Suho’s fluttering walls pushed him over the edge. 

Suho lay still for a long while until he blinked his eyes open and let his arms fall away from Kris’s shoulders, who immediately pulled out and flopped over to the side, shoving his hair out of his face. The lay there, sweating and catching their breath until Kris looked up at Suho and laughed a little. “Holy shit that was good. I don’t think I can do that all the time though. I’m not going to be able to move tomorrow.” 

“Oh you won’t?” Suho snorted, flinching at his scratchy dry throat, “My butt is completely numb right now. Next time I’m on top.” 

Kris looked terrified. “It’s fun,” Suho said, “and I’m not going to able to hurt you nearly this bad. My dick is kinda average.”

“Your dick is adorable and perfect.”

“Thanks, I guess, but don’t distract me. You should try it some time. I’m not going to be able to take your dick every single time we want to have sex.”

“My ex girlfriend did it.”

“How often did you have sex though.”

“…Almost never.”

“I wonder why.”

“…fuck you.”

“Just think about it, ok?”

“Ugh, fine.”

Kris rolled out of the bed, tried to catch himself to stand, and ended up falling on the ground. Suho giggled as Kris pushed himself up with help from the bed, and stumbled off towards the bathroom, throwing the condom away on his way out the door. He came back wearing pants and carrying all the clothes from the living room and a washcloth. Suho sleepily let him clean him up and get pajamas on him (“whyyyyy?” “because I don’t want to explain to Ella why Mommy isn’t wearing clothes.” “Fine.”), demanded another two glasses of water, and then fell asleep.

Kris woke him up late in the evening to a dinner already made, and Yixing, Ella, and Sarah MechElla 2.0 spreading monopoly pieces all over the living room. 

After dinner he fell asleep across Yixing’s lap, much to his embarrassment, so Kris sent Yixing home and put the rest of the family to bed. Right before falling asleep, Suho checked his phone. 

“Hey Kris.”

“Yeah?”

“Remember how I was saying I wanted to try a ‘just friends,’ thing with Seunghyun?”

“Ugh. Yeah?”

“Well he feels the same way and he’s invited both of us to his New Years Party.”

“Oh man, I really want to go to that.”

“You do?”

“Hell yes. And be your arm candy in front of a bunch of rich assholes? Yes, please. I can’t wait to see Seunghyun and know I’ve won. Also it’s been years since I’ve been to a good party. I’d love to.”

Suho measured potential fun against potentially running into Kyungsoo with yet another new boyfriend, and though he realized the chances were high, Seunghyun had extended an olive branch, and refusing it would probably send the wrong message. 

“Ok. We’ll go.”

 

Kris had shown up at Suho’s apartment at 9:00 in the morning in his “party clothes,” smirking. “Will I fit in with the rich kids? Turn heads?” Suho took one look at the ripped jeans and worn out Batman t-shirt, turned Kris around, and marched him right back out of the house to go shopping. Suho arrived that evening with a very smartly dressed Kris in tow, all sharp black and white lines and leather pants. He looked like a model and knew it, hadn’t stopped smirking since he put it on. Suho was a little proud. 

Seunghyun met them at the door, gave Suho a tight hug even though Kris refused to let go of his hand to make things easier, and gave another mocking salute to Kris, who looked disgusted. Then he got elbowed out of the way by a very drunk Jiyong.

“Oh you’re right, he is cute. Nice catch, Suho,” and swept Suho up into another hug, which made Suho squeak because he half expected a dagger between his ribs. “Oh don’t flinch, I like you now. Champagne this way. No fireworks, of course, but everyone gets sparklers at midnight. Don’t set anything on fire.” He looped an arm through Suho’s and dragged him deeper into the party. Suho accidentally let go of Kris and lost him. 

They ran into Kyungsoo by the drinks. “Kyungsoo and Suho!” Jiyong said cheerily and Kyungsoo looked suspicious. “Don’t worry, I won’t force you to interact.” He leaned on Kyungsoo’s shoulder heavily and tried to find a couple empty glasses for Suho and Kris. Kyungsoo gingerly grabbed his sides to steady him when he started using both hands, eyes flickering to Suho. “Did you get a date this time, Kyungsoo?” Jiyong asked. Kyungsoo flushed and stared intently at the champagne Jiyong was pouring, “Ah, no. Not this time.” 

“It’s ok, I’ll be your date,” Jiyong handed Suho two filled and dripping champagne flutes and then turned and dramatically embraced Kyungsoo, who stumbled under the weight. Suho turned and fled. 

Kris was deep in conversation with two young women in sparkly dresses, who had the smiley, sly looks of women being shamelessly flirted with. Suho slid up under his arm and handed him his champagne. 

“Ladies, this is my wife, Suho.”

“Oh my god.” 

They giggled, taken aback. “Are you two…?” One asked, holding up two fingers and closing them.

“Together? Yes.” 

“Did you tell them about your daughter?”

“Oh yeah. I have a seven-year-old daughter and I lied about the car.” He took a deep swig of champagne and looked nonchalantly around the party as the girls looked half disappointed and half amused. Suho snickered. 

“He was probably talking about my car,” he said, and they perked up. 

“Still not single,” Kris muttered. 

Suho ignored him and enjoyed flirting, but soon let them leave to go find more available options. 

“Do you flirt with everyone?” Suho asked.

“Yes. I’ve told you this before. Like, twice. Do you mind?”

Suho thought about it for a moment. “Not really. It’s kind of how you interact with people and I think that’s charming. Just don’t get too serious and always explain if it goes too far, I guess.”

“Of course.” 

Despite occasionally getting a little starry-eyed, like when the dance troupe arrived and he spotted the food table, Kris looked right at home amidst all the other young artists in the room. Suho watched him deftly maneuver a conversation about the stock market into a conversation about art collection so he had something to contribute, and then witnessed him artfully charm the most elaborately dressed woman in the room, CL, Jiyong’s date from the last party. 

He and Kris finally collapsed into a leather couch in the lowered seating area in the center of the room, right by the couch he and Seunghyun had had sex on not so long ago. Suho stared at it through a haze of champagne, finding it a little surreal now that Kris was sitting next to him, and was about to tell Kris about it when Seunghyun called everyone’s attention. 

“Ok, hey everyone. Thanks for coming out. Don’t be afraid to drink everything on the table. Trust me, I have more.”

The room erupted into cheering and it took a while for him to calm the group down. Jiyong stood on a slightly lower chair, gripping Seunghyun for support, and commanded the crowd’s attention. Everyone shut up.

“Thanks, Jiyong. It’s been a fantastic year thanks to everyone involved. And hopefully the next one will be even better!” 

More cheering.

“Ok! Midnight is in half and hour so the sparklers will be up on the bar. PLEASE do not light any until midnight. Drink up and find someone to kiss!” He leaned down and attached his mouth messily to Jiyong’s, who kissed hungrily back, hot and intense. Suho looked away, stomach swooping with misplaced jealousy, murmuring, “Still not used to that,” under his breath to Kris, who giggled and bit at Suho’s ear, arms tight around him. 

Suho caught sight of Kyungsoo staring open-mouthed at Seunghyun and Jiyong, then snapping his head right around to look Suho dead in the face. His eyes narrowed. Suho’s stomach dropped. If he could still read Kyungsoo like a book, which he could, that look meant fury. He disappeared into the crowd. Suho wondered uncomfortably if he should take Kris and run.

The next half hour passed slowly, but without any sign of Kyungsoo. Seunghyun stopped by to interrupt Kris’s low conversation with some girl who played drums and looked like she could kick Suho’s ass to hand them both more champagne, and fuck up Kris’s hair, who nearly smacked him. Then he let Kris return to his conversation and sat down beside Suho. “Kyungsoo just asked Jiyong about what’s going on.”

“Did he?”

“Yeah. Seemed a little unhappy about the answers. I think he might be coming to confront you about it, but it really doesn’t seem like his business.”

“You know, it isn’t, but at the same time, he might find issue with the way I’ve treated him, and this could be one way of finally bringing it out into the open. I’m worried. I think I’m going to stay for the sparklers and then scramble.”

“Ok, fair enough. Are you going to tell Kris about Kyungsoo?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow. Should have told him as soon as I knew we were coming.”

“As long as you have a plan…” Seunghyun handed him two sparklers and then stood and went to find Jiyong.

A minute before midnight hit, Seunghyun got on a table again and everyone lit their sparklers. It was perfectly timed. As the clock struck midnight someone dimmed the lights and everyone in the room held up their sparklers like a flashy, fabulous candlelight service, and Kris brought their mouths together, tongues sliding, lips pressing, one long arm curled under his arms and pulling him closer. Suho gripped him closer by the back of his neck, arm twisted up behind his head until the sparklers died. He pulled away and stared up for a long moment into Kris’s impossibly soft eyes, his beautiful smile, as the room erupted into cheers and drinking around them. 

When the room finally quieted down, Suho turned around to find Kyungsoo sitting _right there_ on the spot where Seunghyun had eaten him out a couple weeks ago as he leaned on the armrest. Kyungsoo stared at them, perfectly friendly. Suho was struck with how pretty he was, big eyes and fluffy hair, thin shoulders, sitting gracefully against the defiled armrest. Suho forced himself not to giggle inappropriately. 

“So this is new. You and Seunghyun move really fast.” 

Suho hesitated, wondering what the path of least damage would be.

“Ah yes, well…”

“You seem to already be kind of deeply in love over here, what’s that about?”

Suho shifted uncomfortably. “It was kind of an easy thing to fall into, I guess.”

“I see. Didn’t you break up with Seunghyun on Christmas?”

“After. And to be fair he cheated on me.”

“So did you though,” Kris said.

“Not helpful, Kris.”

“Suho, who is this?”

“This is Kyungsoo.”

“Nice to meet you, Kyungsoo,” Kris said, reaching out a hand. Kyungsoo took it with a smile.

“Ex-boyfriend,” Kyungsoo said, “We lived together for a few years. No big deal.”

Kris froze, hand still in Kyungsoo’s, and turned to Suho “Wait, opera tickets Kyungsoo?”

“You still have those?” Kyungsoo asked, “That’s cute. Anyway, what’s your name?”

“Kris.”

“Nice to meet you. No hard feelings. You must be something else to beat out Seunghyun. What do you do?”

Kris, who had coolly answered “full-time Dad” whenever the question had come up beforehand, answered, slowly, “I’m the janitor in Suho’s office.”

Kyungsoo was very quiet for a long minute, smile sliding into something emptier, eyes flickering up and down Kris’s body then, softly, “Nice clothes, janitor. Suho bought those for you? Nice having a sugar daddy, isn’t it?”

“Kyungsoo!” 

“My apologies,” he said to Kris’s stunned expression, “That was uncalled for. I let him dress me up too when we were together. He likes being seen with pretty things.”

“Oh my god, Kyungsoo. What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“No, don’t fucking give me that, Suho. Take your hands away from your face and stop acting like I’m the bitch. You thought you were above me. You turned me into something else when we went out to meet your friends. I wasn’t good enough for you, was I? You made sure I knew it. You’re doing the same thing to him.”

“That’s not true! He wouldn’t have felt comfortable.”

“True,” Kris said, but he looked uncomfortable anyway. Kyungsoo ignored them both.

“What was I to you, Suho? Did you care about me at all? Was I just your little pet project all along? After four fucking years you left me on my own with no friends in an apartment I couldn’t afford, trying to continue a lifestyle I couldn’t sustain, because I wasn’t successful enough—That’s what it was, don’t you fucking disagree, that’s what you told me it was—While you ran off to live a Hollywood perfect life with your undiscovered dream man. You left me for a fairy tale. And there he is! Over there! Making out with my boss! Are you happy yet?” 

“I’m sorry,” Suho said, voice thin and quiet, fingers clutching at Kris’s sleeve.

Kyungsoo let them stew in discomfort for a moment, sipping his champagne and staring forward with his most intimidating glare. It looked so different on his face now than it had looked three years ago, back when he had bad hair and could never stay angry for more than ten seconds. Now he was all poise. Suho had no doubt he could easily have become the Prince Charming he’d always imagined. It stung. 

“You’re happy with him?” Kyungsoo pointed at Kris.

“Yes.”

Kyungsoo groaned in frustration and smacked his hands over his face for a few seconds. 

“And here I was, believing you left me because you were sick of taking care of me. I was so sure I’d finally figured it out. My life has been hell, Suho, since you just dropped me without warning. I’m sure its been easy for you, but I’ve got fucking nothing. No support, no back-up plan, no money. I had to move on my own, throw away half my stuff, and learn to function alone after having you for four fucking years.

“I thought,” he stopped and took a deep breath, “I thought you were happy using me to make you look better. I was ok with being that for you if it made you happy. Hell, I thought you loved me. I certainly loved you. I thought you were going to be constant for my entire fucking life. Then you fucking left, and after nearly two years of depression and panic and blaming myself for losing the best thing that ever happened to me, I could almost have forgiven you for it, because holy shit, you caught Seunghyun of all people, I’d leave too. I can’t compete with that. But no, here you are back dating someone you can pamper and dress up to make yourself look like a saint with an angel on his arm. Turns out you could’ve stayed with me after all, but fuck it, here’s someone new. Fuck you, Suho.”

Suho couldn’t breath past the horrible stinging lump in his throat. Kris had gone very still beside him. He could sense Kris looking at him, but couldn’t bear to look up.

Kyungsoo drank his champagne calmly, “Kris, he left me. He left Seunghyun. What’ll happen to you as soon as he finds someone better?”

“Kyungsoo, that’s not how this works. That’s not what happened. Don’t you dare act like I’d do that. You know I wouldn’t.”

“I don’t know shit, Suho. I think that’s exactly something you’d do.”

Suho crumpled. Kris did not try to comfort him. 

“So, Mr. Arm Candy,” Kyungsoo addressed Kris, “You’re actually ok with dating this pathetic asshole who wants to pamper you and treat you like his pet project until he gets sick of you and leaves you with nothing?”

Kris was silent. 

“Nice meeting you, Kris. Suho, good luck.” He stood up and left with one last harsh pat to Suho’s shoulder. 

The party continued loudly around them. Suho hung onto Kris’s sleeve for dear life and kept his other shaking hand over his face. Kyungsoo, sweet, adorable Kyungsoo. Sweet, vengeful, harsh, angry Kyungsoo, was worse than any guilt, any lost happy memory.

Kris pried Suho’s fingers off his arm, “Let’s go home.”

“Ok.”

They walked home. It wasn’t far. The alcohol made everything worse. Kyungsoo’s face stuck in his mind, his smooth, soft voice biting. Somewhere around the second block and the seventh run-through in his head of Kyungsoo saying “Fuck you, Suho,” he realized his vision was blurry and his breath was coming in short. 

He reached for Kris’s arm. Kris let him hang there but didn’t hold his hand, didn’t slow down and make sure he was ok, didn’t even look at him. 

The apartment was too bright. Suho shrugged out of his coat and left it on the rug, sinking into the couch and letting himself cry weakly into a pillow feeling utterly mortified, guilt eating at his gut. Kris moved quietly around behind him. Suho looked up after a couple minutes and realized he was collecting all his stuff that was scattered around the apartment.

“Kris, are you leaving?”

Kris turned around and met him with an exasperated look. Suho shrank back. 

“Was all that true?”

“Everything Kyungsoo said? I’m not using you, Kris, and I’m not going to leave you like that. I was horrible to him. I was stupid. I’m not ever leaving anyone for something so stupid again.”

“But you did do that. You left him with nothing because you wanted Prince Charming.”

“Yes.”

“Because he wasn’t good enough for you.”

Suho closed his eyes and nodded.

“He seemed good enough to me.”

“He was, I mean, he should have been enough. I was stupid and selfish.”

“Suho, you’re—that’s disgusting.”

“Please don’t go.” 

“No, Suho. I don’t trust this, and you know I hate being used, or looked down on. I’m not going to be your personal care project.”

“That’s not what this is. That’s not what my relationship with him was either, Kris. I don’t know where he got that from. I loved him.”

“Do you love me?”

Suho looked up in surprise, trying to figure out what he wanted. “We’ve been dating for six days.”

“Technically seven, but that’s my point. I don’t know, Suho. I thought I could ignore all your little flaws because you’ve never actually done anything too terrible, but that? That poor kid. I don’t trust this. You left him with nothing, Suho. How the hell can anyone be that selfish? Did you not bother to warn him? Help him find a new apartment? Maybe leave him with some assets so he could fix his life? You can’t have someone depend on you completely and then leave because you imagine you can do better. That’s terrible. That’s what my ex-girlfriend did.” 

Suho’s panic rose in his throat. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing to me? Why are you always apologizing?” 

“What about Ella?”

“Believe it or not, Ella will survive without you. We’ve always functioned without you around before, and we can do it again.”

“W-without me?”

“Unlike Kyungsoo, I don’t need you, Suho. And I’m not going to hang around here till I do.” He left. 

Suho stayed on the couch for hours, trying to figure out how to get Kris to forgive him, each plan more elaborate than the last. Sometime around dawn he wondered if this was what Kyungsoo felt like when he’d left him sitting on the living room floor where his knees had given out three years ago. It occurred to him that Kyungsoo had probably felt much worse. Suho decided he didn’t deserve Kris. He hadn’t deserved Seunghyun either, or Kyungsoo. He gave up and let himself cry his way into the new year, finally completely alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please give me feedback!
> 
> Come visit me at [tumblr](http://ginforink.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/Ginforink).


	7. Chapter 7

“Why is there a new janitor?” Sehun asked Tao the day after the company got back to work. 

“Kris quit.”

“No! Why?”

Tao whispered his response so Suho couldn’t hear it, but he could feel Sehun’s gaze on his back as he gasped, “Really? And now he’s gone? Just like that? But I wanna see Ella! What happened?”

“Shhh. I don’t know. And don’t ask Suho!”

“No wonder he looks like his dog died.”

“He can hear you, you idiot!”

Tao entered the office a few minutes later to find Suho with his head down on his desk. “Suho, could you bring the ‘Most Efficient Department’ Award out here to take a photo with Chanyeol? His mother doesn’t believe him.”

Suho chuckled slightly, dragged himself up out of his chair, and grabbed the plaque off the wall, right next to his “MVP” and “Office Rookie” awards, more recognition than he ever expected. Their office had won the most awards out of any department at the end of the year, but Suho found it hard to feel proud.

He dragged himself out of his chair every hour to walk about the office and make sure Chanyeol, Baekhyun, Chen, Tao, and Sehun were all on task. He hadn’t missed this, much preferring to hear them all yelp when Kris snuck up on them, but he wasn’t sure he should ask the new janitor to start filling Kris’s spot just yet. 

The new janitor, an aging black woman with a pronounced frown, did not seem to care at all what Chanyeol and Baekhyun got up to in the workplace, unless it involved then getting in the way of things. On her second day she did what the entire office had been attempting for weeks, and caught Chanyeol and Baekhyun hooking up in the bathroom. She quickly insisted that Suho fire both of them. Several days later with no sign of them leaving, she seemed to have lost all respect for him. 

He stayed late, just like he had every day since New Years, startling away from the screen only when the new janitor loudly changed out the trash bag in his office. Kris’s absence in the office a physical ache in the air.

“Go home, son,” she said, “It’s late. Don’t you have someone waiting at home?”

“No…”

“No wife? Really? A well-settled, handsome man like you?”

He laughed, “No, I’m only twenty-four.”

She whistled lowly, “You’re too young for this job.”

He tried not to snort indignantly, and managed an only half-insulted grunt.

She left before he did, and he stood outside his locked office door, not willing to go to his huge, empty apartment. There was the new copy machine they’d bought when Baekhyun and Chanyeol dumped water all over the old one while asking for Kris’s number. There was the huge stack of printer paper Kris had arranged into modern sculpture, already broken down and set back into a neat stack. There were the plastic plants that replaced the real ones after Tao tipped them all onto the carpet as revenge for Kris turning him down. Ella’s pen drawings remained up on the notice board, half covered by advertisements and schedules. Suho leaned against the wall, and breathed.

 

Home was no better. The monopoly set still sat under the coffee table. One American Girl shoe lingered beneath the dining room table. The Christmas wallet sat empty on his dresser. He could almost imagine Kris sitting on the couch, Ella putting Sarah to sleep in the guest bedroom, tiny sandwiches sitting on the counter. Suho took to watching the news. It was the only channel without too many publically displayed relationships. 

On Sunday Suho couldn’t escape to the office and Tao was busy with his mother, so Suho, desperate for an escape, ended up in Seunghyun’s calm studio, letting him gently cheer him up with the world’s weirdest stories and a steady stream of rapping. 

“Suho, it’s been a couple weeks now. You look exhausted. Have you tried contacting him?”

Suho shook his head. “Haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Seriously, you should talk to him. Maybe he’ll come back. You’re a great guy, regardless of your history. Make him see the light.” 

“It’s not just that I miss Kris. I mean, I do, but I only dated him a week. We only knew each other for three months or so, maybe a little more, I don’t know. It’s that I feel like I’ll never deserve what I had with Kyungsoo again. Kris left me and so will everyone else I ever try to love because I suck.”

“You’re not that bad!”

“Tell me something else about Jiyong.”

Seunghyun huffed, obviously unwilling to move the conversation along, but unsure of how to continue. “Well, after the New Years party Jiyong and I found dead sparklers in some of the weirdest places. In the toilet, in the plants, stuck under wine bottles in the bar, stuck into the leather couch.”

“No! That’s terrible.”

“Yeah. Not as terrible as the ones in the light fixtures though. I’m still wondering who put theirs in the medicine cabinet when there’s a trash can right there.”

“Ah that one might have been mine,” said someone out in the hallway, and Suho closed his eyes to will it away, but when he opened them there was Kyungsoo, eyes wide on Suho, soft hair drifting in easy layers over his forehead. There was the beat of silence.

“How’s the janitor?” he asked.

“I hate you,” Suho said with conviction. Kyungsoo flinched. “No I don’t. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You were right about everything. He left me after New Years and I deserve it.”

Kyungsoo didn’t look pleased. He awkwardly handed a stack of sheet music to Seunghyun. Suho studied his shoes. 

Kyungsoo murmured, “I’m sorry,” very quietly, “I shouldn’t have said all that with him there. I actually thought about things afterwards when I was more sober and less angry. I know you didn’t see me as arm candy, and I know you didn’t realize what you were doing to me. You’re excessively kind, Suho. I know you didn’t realize. I’m sorry.”

“Please don’t be sorry. I had it coming. I hope it was therapeutic for you.” 

“It wasn’t. I just felt kind of sick afterwards.”

“Kyungsoo, I just want you to be happy.” His voice broke.

Kyungsoo hovered awkwardly. “I am happy, Suho. I have an album coming out, I feel stronger now than I ever felt even with your support, I’ve grown a lot, I have friends to help me, and I think…” he took a deep breath, “I think I’m finally getting over you.”

Suho felt that like a punch in the gut.

“Maybe I’ll start dating again,” Kyungsoo said quietly, and Suho managed a tremulous smile, aching for that kind of hope. 

“I hope you find someone better than me,” he said.

“Fat chance of that ever happening,” Kyungsoo murmured, not meeting his eyes.

“You’re already better than me. Don’t count yourself out.”

Kyungsoo met his eyes with a soft smile.

“You either, Suho. You always beat yourself up over stuff. I know you must be really unhappy right now if the janitor—”

“Kris.”

“—if Kris left you. But its not entirely your fault. It’s mostly mine,” Kyungsoo nodded to himself, “So don’t beat yourself up too much. You should make an effort to get him back. At least one of us should live happily ever after.”

“Not sure it’d be appropriate since I only had him a week, but thank you. Unfortunately, he’s comparing me to his evil ex-girlfriend now. I won’t harass him.” 

Seunghyun and Kyungsoo had a quick conversation about the sheet music, the meeting of the ex-boyfriends, and then he hesitantly crossed the room, gently put his hands on Suho’s cheeks, and gave the top of his head one last kiss. Suho reflexively grabbed his hands on the way back down and held him there in front of him. “Be happy,” Kyungsoo said, voice shaking. “I forgive you for everything. Please forgive yourself.” 

 

“Suho, you’ve been like this for almost two months now. Maybe you should start going on dates again.”

“Hah, no way. I’d probably end up apologizing for being a shitty human. Got anyone in mind, Tao?”

“Not really. I don’t even know where you used to get all your dates.”

Tao watched him mope over his uneaten sandwich. “Suho, just go down to Ella’s school and kidnap her. That’ll get his attention.” 

“I don’t want to see him. I don’t deserve him. I’ll just cry.”

“Yeah, that’s unattractive. Maybe you should give it more time.”

“If he was interested in having me back he would have contacted me by now.” 

“Suho you’re just scared. You need to chase after him if you want him back.”

Suho put his head down on his desk. He figured it would have a permanent forehead indent soon. “I don’t deserve him. I don’t feel like I deserve anyone now. I don’t know what I would say. You’ve seen how I’ve been the past couple months; another rejection would kill me.”

Tao left him alone. 

 

Suho went on a date. The venue was lovely, a jazz competition at an upscale bar. The date was even lovelier, dim lights glowing auburn in her dark hair, delicately manicured nails clicking lightly on her glass, smiling and bobbing her head to the music. She had a charming low giggle, an excellent fashion taste, a nice smile, a good job. Maybe a few months ago he would’ve asked for a second date. He kept looking at her sleek black hair and wanting dyed blond. She seemed to take his moping for an attractively moody personality and laid the flirting on thick.

As his date chattered about playing saxophone in high school Suho wondered what would happen if he really did go find Kris, or pick Ella up from school one day and take her home. Would he listen if Suho tried to convince him to come back? Did he miss him at all? 

Eventually the spell broke. He looked across at her just as she asked him a question, and he interrupted the entire conversation and asked what she knew about art. Perturbed, she floundered for a minute, and then admitted that she knew nothing. They both lost interest. Suho picked up a six-pack of beer and went back to the office for the night.

 

One late Sunday evening Suho looked up from his fourth glass of gin to see Kris’s apartment building on the news, caution tape everywhere. “Fatal Knife Fight” ran across the bottom of the screen. Someone knocked on the door the same moment his drink hit the floor. He stumbled over, wondering why the doorman had let whoever it was up even though he hadn’t answered the buzzer, and opened it. Standing there, hands in his pockets, looking nervously over his shoulder, was Kris. 

The alcohol had completely taken over his motor function, or at least that was what Suho would say when asked to explain why he’d hugged Kris so hard they hit the opposite wall. Suho’s numbly aching arms registered pain.

“Whoa, hey, ow. That hurts, dude.” 

Suho sobbed in response, but still had the presence of mind to be a little embarrassed and backed off, lurching against his doorframe and stumbling inside, motioning for Kris to follow, still sobbing.

“Are you drunk?” 

Suho nodded. “The news. Your building. I was about to get worried. Dropped…dropped my gin. Shit.” He’d come around the back of the couch to find the glass smashed, lime pulp and ice melting all over the wood floor. “I think it got on the couch.”

“Shit? Suho. You’re slurring.”

“Gotta clean up the glass.”

“No, you lie down. I’ll fucking deal with it.”

“I’ll be fine. Do this every night.”

“Every night? Jesus Christ, Suho, you’re a mess.”

Suho lay down on the couch and took a few deep breaths as Kris cleaned up the gin behind the couch. “Gin is such an old man’s drink.”

“S’fuckin delicious.”

Kris let out a shaky sigh. “Do you always swear so much when you get drunk?”

“No.” He looked up at where the news reporting the details. There was a very bloody body. He gasped, “Is Ella ok?”

“She’s fine. She was pretty scared. It happened in the hall outside our place.”

“Fuck. Ella.”

“She’s with Yixing. He has friends. They didn’t have room for me though, so…” he sat back on the floor, staring up at Suho, “here I am.” 

“Come here.” 

“You’re drunk.”

“I want—“ Suho squeaked and started sobbing again, “I want you.” 

“Holy shit, Suho. You’re going to sleep and I’ll talk to you about this in the morning.” 

“I won’t be any more intelligent, I mean, intelligible then.” 

“I am not dealing with you when you’re like this.” 

Suho would not let Kris leave his side, so Kris got him in bed and waited the two minutes until he fell asleep, then gingerly detached Suho’s fingers from his wrist, and went to sleep on the couch.

 

“I have a guest bedroom, you know.”

“Huh?”

“I made breakfast. Come eat it. You look like you haven’t been eating.”

Kris stretched out on Suho’s couch below him, feet and arms off the ends. “That’s because I haven’t been eating.” 

“Food. Now.” 

Kris managed to stand, still forcing his eyes open after each blink, and made his way sluggishly towards the kitchen for eggs with salsa and avocado on toast. 

“Holy shit. Avocados. Good morning. Don’t you have work? It’s nearly nine.”

“I called in sick,” Suho’s nervous hands stuck permanently to his face as Kris ate quickly. “Anyway, why didn’t you sleep in the guest room?”

“Didn’t want to mess up the sheets,” he said between bites, “haven’t showered in three days.”

Suho wrinkled his nose. “Why not?”

“No time.” 

“I can just wash the sheets, you know. Use my shower after breakfast.”

“Ok.”

“Don’t you have work too?”

“Oh right. Can I use your phone?”

Suho listened to him cancel with some sort of office. “No, I don’t think you understand. Someone was straight up murdered outside my apartment. Not on the street, in the hallway. I’m so sorry I didn’t call in twenty-four hours in advance, I was a bit distracted by keeping my family from getting straight up murdered. I won’t be at work today because I’m trying to sort my life out. No way. No chance. Do it yourself. I don’t care. Goodbye.” 

Suho poured himself a drink while he waited for Kris to get out of the shower. Kris took it from him the moment he got out. “No, give that back.”

“I wasn’t going to talk to you while you were drunk last night. I’m not going to do it now.” He put the drink gingerly on top of the liquor cabinet and then settled on the couch and rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “So how’ve you been?”

“Please come back. I miss you. Everything I do hurts.” 

“That bad, huh?”

Suho rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes and nodded, turning his sigh into a laugh to prevent more crying.

“Well, I bet I’ve been worse.”

“Really? You’ve been having a life crisis about being a shitty human that no one is ever going to love?”

“No, I’ve been trying to fix my life, but you’ve made it impossible.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m a terrible person.”

“No, no. Listen. I had to find a new job, but nothing pays better than what you did. I’d gotten used to eating every day. Switching back was really hard. Having to deal with Ella being home alone all the time again was really hard. Cutting myself off from the office ended up being harder than I expected. Turns out I’m actually friends with all those assholes and I miss them. Ella misses you like crazy. I miss you too.”

“Then please come back.”

“I want to, but every reason that I left is still here. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t desperately need help. I’m about to lose the apartment and I will not take Ella to a shelter. I will not.” He picked at the embroidery on a throw pillow, not meeting Suho’s eyes. “So you’re going to have to convince me, right now, that you’re never going to do to me what you did to Kyungsoo.”

“Because I would not survive the guilt of doing that a second time, I guess?” Suho said, semi-hysterically. He stared at the ceiling looking for a better answer. “I didn’t use him like he said I did. And I’ve talked to him since then. He agrees. I loved him. He loved me. I didn’t realize how much he depended on me and I left without thinking about it. I was a careless, selfish, stupid idiot. 

“But I’m not at all the same person I was when I broke up with Kyungsoo. I’m not even the same person I was when you met me, and that’s your fault. We only knew each other for two months but you changed the way I acted, just by being around and calling me out when I was conceited or selfish. I love how you’re so tough and such an asshole on the surface but you’re such a fantastic father and you’re goofy and funny and sweet as hell. 

“I can’t function at work like I used to because there are reminders of you everywhere. I can’t even stay here during my free time because I keep remembering you and Ella around the apartment. I can’t sleep. I can’t watch TV. I can’t, fuck, I can’t masturbate.” Kris cracked a small smile. Suho put his head in his hands. “Please don’t laugh at me.” 

“I have a seven-year-old daughter in a very small apartment. Welcome to my _life_.” 

“I’m so sorry.” 

There was Kris’s smile, pulling gently at one edge of his mouth. Suho ached.

“Please come back. I don’t know how to prove how much this means to me, but I miss you so much. Please believe me. I’d never hurt you. Just,” Suho hugged another throw pillow to his face, trying not to tear up pathetically.

Kris sighed. “Ok, this isn’t as satisfying or fun as I imagined it would be. I’m just trying to get as much flattery and begging out of you as possible. The fact is, if I left you now, I’d never get over you. Besides, as much as I want to keep my pride and refuse to take you back, I need to. I can’t keep struggling like this, and we’ll literally starve to death if I refuse to take you back because I’m too worried you’ll help me even though I can’t give you anything in return.

“I know you, Suho, and I really do believe that you would never ditch me. I don’t know who you were when you dumped your ex, but I know who you are now, and I’ve been kicking myself since I left. I’ve really missed you. Ella has too, and I can’t stand another day of her asking why we can’t see you. So yeah, I’ll come back.”

Suho sat still for a moment to make sure Kris had really just agreed to come back and he wasn’t about to yell “psych!” and run away again. He crawled into Kris’s lap and hugged him tightly, face pressed up against his neck. Kris pulled the throw pillow out from between them and then held him close, one hand petting slowly over his back and the other in his hair. Suho sniffled, “You know, I’m really sick of crying. This shit hurts after a bit.”

“I love it when you swear. Do it again.”

“No.”

They stayed there for a while, neither willing to let go. 

“Suho?”

“Yes?”

“Would it be terrible if I asked you to let Ella and I stay here until I can find a safer apartment even though we’ve only just gotten back together?”

“Really sounds like you just came back to me for somewhere to stay. But. You can stay here and not bother finding another apartment. Just stay here. We can turn the guest bedroom into Ella’s room. I don’t need it.”

“Dude. That’s moving way too fast.”

“Really?” Suho croaked. “I’m sorry.”

Kris snorted. “I’m kidding. Dude, I’m the one that asked to move in. I think I’ll take you up on that. Don’t do anything too drastic though. There’s always the chance we won’t work out.”

Suho scoffed.

“Here’s another question. If I quit my horrible job, would you support Ella and I long enough for me to find a new one?”

“I will support that, but I think you should find some art history and museum studies classes before you look for another job. Go to college. I’ll pay for it. Be that museum curator, Kris.”

“Holy shit,” Kris breathed, then, “Will you buy me a Ferrari?”

“Pushing it, Kris. That’s really pushing it. I’m not going to be your sugar daddy. Do you even have a driver’s license?”

“Technically yes. I just haven’t driven anything since I got it.”

“No Ferrari.”

“Damn.” 

Suho kissed him.

They stayed cuddled on the couch for a while, kissed occasionally, twisted around each other with arms growing tired from hugging too hard.

“Suho, eventually I’m going to have to go get Ella from school so she doesn’t have to go home to Yixing and his weird friends.”

“Ah, ok.”

“But before that, have you ever heard of the concept of make-up sex?”

“Oh. Yes, I have.” 

“I brought condoms.” 

“You are a presumptuous, scheming little devil, aren’t you?”

Kris giggled, “A what?”

“Never mind. Let’s start on the bed this time.” 

“Ok. And I’m making you do all the work. I went through a traumatic experience yesterday.”

“Oh yeah, the homicide.”

“I was thinking of you drunkenly assaulting me in the hallway and crying on my shirt, but yeah, that too.”

Suho got up and stalked off towards the bedroom.

Kris followed him, chuckling, shrugging off his hoodie, leaving him in just an old, unreadable gray t-shirt and holey jeans. He jumped on the bed and lay back with his hands behind his head. “I’m waiting.”

“You suck.”

“That’s your job this time.”

“That’s what you think, but there are certain disadvantages to having a huge dick, and that includes having partners who are very unwilling to die by dick asphyxiation.”

“I’m sure you’ll do fine,” Kris said, watching Suho dig the bottle of lube out of the dresser. 

“Cock ring?” Suho asked. 

“Oh fuck. Not this time, please.” 

Suho put it back. “Hot pink vibrator?”

“You have a what? Why?”

“Because they only came in one color.”

“You blush way too much to have this extensive a collection of sex toys.”

“I told you, I love sex, and one cock ring and one vibrator do not a collection make.”

“But that’s not all you have, is it?”

“No.”

“Anything super weird I should be warned about?”

“Nah. I keep it to pretty simple things. No ropes or whips. You can relax.”

“Ok good. I am not ready for anything like that.”

Suho crawled onto the bed and just straddled Kris’s thighs for a moment. He sat there for a moment, and then smiled before he could help himself. 

“What’s up with that grin?”

“I’m just so happy you’re here.”

Kris sat up and kissed him sweetly, hands rubbing over his lower back as Suho ran his fingers through Kris’s hair.

“I love your blond hair so much, Kris, you have no idea. I used to lose work time watching the way the sun hit it in the morning.”

“I know. I caught you staring at me a lot. Just made me want you more.”

Suho smiled too hard and had to stop kissing. “Your roots are coming in,” he murmured, “It looks good with your hair messed up like this.”

Kris used the distraction to lean in and suck gently under Suho’s ear, who tipped his head to the side and closed his eyes, feeling it, hands stilling in Kris’s hair. 

“Baby,” Kris murmured. Suho sighed. “Let’s get this ugly sweater off you.”

“You take that back.”

“Absolutely not.” He pulled the incredibly tacky brown sweater up slowly over Suho’s head, and met his lips the moment the sweater passed them. He stopped just after the sweater had cleared his hair, keeping Suho’s arms tangled above his head, gently biting at his lower lip. 

Suho forgot where they were and just sat patiently, kissing easily, all the blood draining out of his arms. 

Kris ran his hands up over his firm shoulders, pushing further and further until the sweater was all the way off, then laced his fingers through Suho’s and pulled his hands back down beside them, still kissing him gently. Suho felt like he was floating. 

Kris’s hands drifting to the hem of his shirt and and began pulling that slowly up too. Suho huffed, grabbed the collar, and yanked it off over his head, one ear and his chin getting stuck first, and then an elbow. Kris snickered, “impatient?”

“I am not going to just sit here while you undress me at a snail’s pace. Take your shirt off.”

“I insist we do this slowly.”

“Well don’t torture me with it! Take your shirt off.”

Kris did not. Instead, he flicked both thumbs lightly over Suho’s nipples. Suho let his head drop onto Kris’s shoulder. “Or you could do that.” 

He stayed there a bit, flicking and pinching lightly until Suho moaned, and then backed off and pulled his own shirt off. Suho kicked his jeans away, pushed Kris onto his back, and kissed slowly across his collar bones, stopping every few inches to bite and suck gently at his skin. 

“Please don’t leave anything you wouldn’t want Ella asking about.”

“Fair enough.” 

He moved lower to show Kris exactly why he loved nipple stuff so much. Kris shifted uncomfortably as Suho sucked on one lightly. “I don’t think that does as much for me as it does for you.” Suho flicked his tongue rapidly over it as he pinched the other. “Oh shit. Oh fuck. Ok, I get it. That’s fucking weird.” 

“It’s like an on switch, right?” 

“I don’t know if—“ he gasped, his chest twitching, “I like that.” 

Suho smirked and continued, playing with it, moving from one to the other, switching between rubbing and flicking until Kris gave a confused groan and pushed Suho’s head south. 

Suho went willingly, trailing kissing down his painfully thin stomach, stopping at his navel to bite gently for a moment, hands stroking up and down his sides, and then down to his zipper. He pulled Kris’s pants off easily because they were too big for him. “Have you lost even more weight?”

“Yeah.”

“These pants don’t fit you anymore.”

“Buy me new ones?”

“You really are only in this for my money. How about I just feed you more?”

He snickered, “That’s ok too.”

Suho sat back a little and pulled Kris’s knee up to his mouth, licking and sucking hot and slow down to where his thigh disappeared into his threadbare boxers. “These too. Updated underwear.”

“It’s all in your hands.”

Suho kissed up the opposite leg, stroking his hands down both of them, just enjoying Kris’s presence there on his bed breathing deeply back against the pillows, his hands over his head. “I should tie you up some time,” he said lightly. 

Kris’s eyes popped open. “What?”

“Nothing too intimidating. Just your hands above your head so I can do what I want with you stretched out like this and you’ll just have to sit back and enjoy it.”

Suho didn’t miss the way Kris got abruptly harder in his boxers, which Suho pulled off. “What if I don’t like it?”

“Then you tell me to stop.”

“Ok,” Kris squirmed a little, “Ok we can do that sometime.” His breath caught as Suho licked gently from the base of his dick all the way up to the tip, sucking the head into his mouth. He gently teased after Kris was fully hard, leaving open-mouthed kisses until Kris kicked him. 

“You wanted it slow.”

“Oh my god, Suho.”

“Sorry. It’s kind of intimidatingly huge.” 

Suho took a deep breath and sucked his dick down as far as he could, which wasn’t very far, feeling it reach towards the back of his throat, and used his hand up and down the rest of it, establishing an anguishing pace. Kris moaned low in his throat, thighs tensing. Suho pressed lower, took a deep breath, and forced back his gag reflex as he slowly edged further down, throat straining, eyes watering. He glanced up to see Kris, open mouthed and flushed feverishly, staring down at him.

“Shit, Suho.”

Suho hummed in response and Kris dropped his head back, breaking eye contact. He continued slowly pumping with his mouth, but reached out to grab the bottle of lube, squirting some into his palm and using it to smooth the way for his hand on the base. Kris let out a breathy moan and Suho looked up to see him experimentally playing with his own nipples. He had to pull off to grin, hand still pumping. “Don’t say a word,” Kris said without stopping, flushing further. Suho dutifully went back down and picked up the pace to watch Kris’s eyelashes flutter. 

It was getting easier to relax his throat, so Suho picked up speed again, getting lower and lower, never stopping the suction. He circled his tongue quickly over whatever he could reach, hand still pumping along with his mouth.

He snuck a hand up to play with Kris’s balls, and the moment he made contact Kris yelped and jerked his hips. Suho choked, but tried to push through, forcing his gag reflex back and continuing, tears rolling down his cheeks, but eventually had to pull off and breathed for a second. Kris’s thumb pressed along Suho’s tensed eyebrows. “Sorry.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Suho croaked, and then went back down abruptly, sucking him down as far he could go and then swallowing rapidly, moving up and down in shallow jerks that never took him too far away, tongue working, hand pumping. Kris’s hand fell away from Suho’s head to grip at the sheets, rough moans forcing their way out his throat.

Suho’s jerks widened into full, fast strokes and Kris’s breathing picked up, high pitched grunts lacing every breath. He brought one hand up to tap quickly against Suho’s neck, a warning, his body drawing tight. So considerate. Suho giggled deep around Kris’s dick, sucking tightly, and Kris came hard, tensing and twitching. Suho squeezed his eyes shut and focused on swallowing, getting that all down and then pulling off, stroking gently as their breathing evened out. 

“Holy shit. Best blowjob I’ve ever gotten. That was amazing. Came too fast.” 

Suho smiled and snuggled against one of Kris’s thighs, head resting on his hip breathing lightly over Kris’s softening cock. Kris shivered and tensed, eyes closing.

“Up for round two?” Suho asked hopefully, voice low and scratchy.

“Probably? Give me a minute.”

“Plenty of time to prep me.”

“Ok. Come up here.” Kris pushed himself further up the pillows and pulled Suho up till he was straddling his waist, then stopped and let his hands brush over Suho’s torso, expression still completely blissed out. “You’re so hot. It’s not fair.” 

Suho laughed and leaned down to kiss him hard, hands cupping his jaw. “You should seriously let me fuck you sometime. The muscles are really convenient.”

“I was thinking you could ride me. You’ll need those muscles for that too.” 

“I can do that.”

Kris kissed him sweetly and popped open the lube, pouring some down his fingers and then reaching down between Suho’s legs. Suho gripped his shoulders as Kris worked a finger into him, thrusting slowly. Suho hissed and wrinkled his nose.

“You ok up there?”

“Haven’t done this in weeks. It’s gonna take a lot to get me ready.”

“I’m ok with that. I need some time.”

He curled his long finger, stroking inside, and Suho felt his dick harden. “’s getting better.”

Kris cautiously added another finger, pushed in slow and heavy in beside the first and then stopped. “Relax, Suho.”

“I know.”

Kris hooked his fingers deep inside Suho and stroked along his walls, angling up and forwards, easily reaching his prostate. “Relaaaaaaaaax.” He murmured teasingly as he pressed down hard enough to have Suho’s hips jerking forward, and then continued to tease in wide circles around the spot. Suho wanted to say something sharp and insulting in response, but didn’t, too afraid that Kris would stop, so he hung on to Kris’s shoulders and moaned lowly, head rolling back. Kris watched his face with wide eyes, thrusting the fingers in and out, aiming at his prostate to hear Suho whimper every time he hit it. 

He relented on the prostate abuse and scissored his fingers apart to let Suho relax. After a few minutes he added a third finger and Suho’s head dropped onto Kris’s shoulder, thighs trembling. Kris pressed soft kisses to the side of his head and neck, murmuring encouragingly, “I’m getting hard again. You sound so beautiful.”

Suho could do nothing but moan, those long fingers twisting and scissoring quickly inside him.

“Kiss me.” 

Suho really tried, but kept getting distracted by Kris’s clever twisting thrusts and his own twitching muscles. 

“Holy shit. So good,” he managed.

“I love it when you swear,” Kris whispered, “Do it again.”

“Fuck me,” Suho murmured against his neck, “Please. I’ve missed your dick so fucking much.” 

Kris moaned lowly, head tipping back and eyes sliding shut. “One more finger,” he said, and then added it immediately. Suho whimpered at the burn, hands gripping hard at Kris’s shoulders. Kris worked him easily through it, shallow thrusts and gentle scissoring. He responded to each of Suho’s gasped moans or pained squeaks, frequently brushing lightly as Suho’s prostate. Suho bit fretfully at Kris’s neck, who laughed and tilted his head to make it easier. 

Eventually he pushed Suho back over his dick and pulled out his fingers. Suho immediately whined and replaced them with his own, stroking inside himself, his own small fingers unsatisfying. He watched impatiently as Kris grabbed a condom and slid it quickly on, completely hard, and coated it with lube. Kris held his dick up with one massive hand and guided Suho down on him with the other.

Suho lowered himself down so slowly, one long, unbroken moan pressing out of his throat as he sank down, cock pulsing, almost on the edge of coming at just the presence of Kris dick inside him. He had to stop a few times, move a couple inches up, and then start the slow descent back down. By the time he was finally seated enough to relax, Kris was shuddering under him, sweat shining on his skin. “Still…oversensitive,” he gasped. 

Suho smirked and rocked his hips, which did as much damage to himself as it did to Kris. Kris gripped his hips to stop him at the same moment that Suho dropped forward to brace his hands against Kris’s chest and gasp in shaking breaths. 

Suho sat still, just feeling the painful fullness burning away in his gut. When it had receded into something warm and vaguely delicious, he rocked up a little and Kris sucked in a gasp under him, head jerking back. Suho stared in wonder, and then slid slowly up and sank back down, Kris moaned deeply. “Suho, just go.”

Suho popped his hips up and then let his body sink back down, the feeling of rapidly filling punching pleasure all through his lower back and up into his stomach. He did it again and again, picking up a rhythm until his eyes closed and his head fell back. Under him, Kris panted raggedly, body tense. 

Kris, through all his gasping and almost pained moaning, smoothed his hands softly over Suho’s sides and traced his thumbs in small circles against the crease of his hips. Occasionally the hands tensed with the rest of his arms, but he didn’t try to control Suho’s movements or push hard enough to bruise. Suho felt lost, completely head over heels lost to Kris with his crow’s nest bed hair and red lips.

Suho bounced frantically, chasing the pleasure that was almost all there. Kris’s hands stroked absently at his abs, which went straight to Suho’s dick, slapping against his stomach with every motion. Kris’s hands moved to Suho’s nipples, flicking lightly with his index fingers and Suho moaned, high and loud, the angry pressure in his gut building, a low rhythm of not enough, not enough, not enough. 

“Kris!”

Kris squeaked out “yeah?” 

“Help!” 

He meant for Kris to start tugging on his dick, but instead he grabbed Suho’s hips and started thrusting up into him hard, each push sliding along his sweet spot, and Suho threw his head back and yelled. His gut was on fire. Not enough, not enough. How the hell wasn’t it enough yet? He sobbed, everything too much, too hot, and too close. Kris needed to jerk him off. He didn’t think he was capable of speaking. He realized his hands were sitting uselessly across Kris’s arms. He could totally do it himself. The thought made him gasp, and he moved his hands, but for some reason bypassed his dick and went straight up to his nipples, pinching and twisting. 

The heat in his gut surged, licking down through his balls and then exploding. He came messily all over Kris’s stomach. Kris continued to thrust, but Suho’s thighs couldn’t hold his weight anymore. He tried to thrust back, or at least hold himself up for Kris, but the aftershocks knocked him forward into leaning down over Kris, arms against the bed. 

Kris grabbed him and rolled them over, dick sliding out. He manhandled Suho into position, cum still dripping down his stomach, and then thrust back in. Suho convulsed weakly beneath him, barely aware of the tears on his cheeks as Kris pounded into him. He raised his tired hands and pulled Kris’s face down for a kiss. Kris panted against his mouth as Suho bit gently at his lip. 

He had to stop, the oversensitivity was too painful and distracting to continue kissing, but he ran a hand down over Kris’s stomach, wiping away his own cum, and brought it lazily back up to his face, sucking it into his mouth to muffle his own whimpers, eyes locked on Kris’s wide ones. Kris let out one shocked moan and came. Suho continued to gather jizz on his fingers and then clean them off with as much lips and tongue as possible, biting at his fingertips, moaning. Kris stared, wide-eyed, as he continued to push slowly in and out of Suho. 

“Dude. You keep doing that and I’m going to need a round three.” 

“Hell no,” Suho said around his fingers, “My ass is numb again.” He flipped them over abruptly, Kris sliding out with a yelp and a gasp, and went right down to lick at Kris’s stomach.

“Holy shit. That cannot taste good.”

“Well, no, but that’s not the point.”

Kris propped himself up on his elbows to watch. “You, Suho, are an enigma.”

“How so?”

“You’re so cute! Like, all the time. And then you pull this shit.” 

Suho chuckled, pleased, licking up a stripe of cum and letting it sit there on his tongue outside his mouth as he stared Kris right in the face, and then pulled it in, making a show of licking his lips and swallowing.

“My dick hurts,” Kris complained, grabbing Suho by the ear and pulling him up the bed, “Stop it.” 

Suho giggled, movements still a little sluggish, and lay happily facedown on the covers as Kris got up to throw out the condom. 

“Should we go find Ella?” Suho asked.

“Shower first, please. I am not going anywhere near Yixing smelling this much like sex. He will never let me live it down.” 

“Forget Yixing. What about Ella?”

“Probably won’t matter. It’s not like she can recognize it, right?”

“You’re gross. Shower time.”

There was no round three in the shower. Suho had trouble standing up; there was no way he was going to try going for another ride. They did stay there too long though, rubbing shampoo into each other’s hair and watching the slide of water over skin. 

 

They picked Ella up from daycare together, and ignored the reproachful looks that the lady at the desk kept throwing Kris and her comment, “Decided to come visit your daughter, for once, did you?” When she saw Suho’s hand in Kris’s she muttered “knew it,” which made Suho flush all the way down past his collar. 

“Was Ella mad at me?” Suho asked, gripping Kris’s arm.

“Why would she have been mad at you?”

“Because you were.”

“Nah. I was just disappointed and confused. She missed you. Just wait. She couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t see us anymore. I tried to explain that it was my choice and not yours, but she couldn’t understand why I would do that and I couldn’t figure out how to explain it to her. Every time I tried to lay any blame on you she’d get mad. She’s very protective.”

Suho stopped, gently pulled Kris towards him. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. She was right. I should have trusted you more. Ella is an excellent judge of character.”

As soon as they entered the school’s library, Ella screamed “Mommy!” at the top of her voice and ran for Suho, who knelt down to catch her and forgot to lean into it, toppling backwards into Kris’s legs. Ella squirmed in his arms like an excited puppy. The kids stared, the librarian squawked, and as Ella climbed on his head, Kris laughing above him, the two lonely months seemed worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter will be from Kris's point of view.
> 
> Come visit me at [tumblr](http://ginforink.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/Ginforink).


	8. Chapter 8

August

“Single-ply toilet paper, Kris?”

Kris shrugged, smirking. “It was the cheapest option.”

“Kris, I’m not sure this even counts as functional. It is no skin off my back if you buy the most expensive brand in the store.”

“No skin off your backside, you mean.”

Suho’s eye-roll almost covered the way one hand flitted up to cover his mouth, pale against the red on his cheeks. 

“Why do I ever let you go grocery shopping?”

“I don’t know. I thought you learned your lesson on day one when I brought home that stuff labelled ‘Bargain Meat.’” 

Suho shuddered. “You have to start buying organic food.”

“I’m allergic to obscenely expensive things.”

“You like my car well enough. I rarely see that thing now.”

Kris smiled. “Yeah, the Porsche is nice.” 

They continued emptying the grocery bags, Kris reaching the highest shelves, Suho huffing in distress every few items.

“Where did you even find off-brand chocolate Twinkies, and why did you buy them?”

“Ella used to love those things. They’re the cheapest cheap desserts in the store.”

Out of the corner of his eye Kris could see Suho holding the box, expression gentle as it always was when Kris talked about life before he met Suho, contemplative, trying to understand. Kris took the box from his hands and slid himself between his arms, snuggling his face into Suho’s soft hair.

“You don’t have to suddenly love the Twinkies too, Suho. They’re disgusting. It’s perfectly fine if you’re indignant that I spent your money on them.”

“Kris, I don’t really care how you spend my money. Dad just sent me another huge check for advising him on business plans over family dinner. The man is ridiculous. If you want to spend a couple dollars on crappy food that Ella loves, go ahead. Even though children probably shouldn’t be eating stuff like that.”

“That box was seventy-five cents.”

“Wow. That’s, like, not even money. That’s what you find in the couch cushions while looking for the remote. That’s the price of the cardboard box it came in.”

Kris laughed and the moment ended. Kris reached over Suho’s head to put the box out of Ella’s sight. “It’ll be a surprise.” They continued. Kris sometimes still felt dazzled by the sheer amount of food stored around Suho’s kitchen. He loved that it had been months since his stomach had felt like a black hole, hollow and desperate. 

“How are classes going?”

“My Western European art teacher keeps flirting with me.”

“Oh?” Suho said, chuckling.

“Yeah. I haven’t bothered telling her I have a boyfriend yet.”

“You’re such a charmer.” 

“Grades are good. I just keep getting A’s. Helps to have so much time on my hands. Maybe I should get a job.”

“I keep telling you I’ll let you get a job next semester when you know you can handle it. Trust me, you’ve never been through the terror of finals before. Seriously. You had a hard enough time handling a full time job and school at the beginning of the summer. Let me handle the money for a while and you get your degree.”

“I’d just be getting a part time job.” 

“Wait till next semester.”

“I don’t want to have to depend completely on you, and I don’t want you to have to pay for both Ella and I.”

“Kris, have I told you how I got that Porsche?”

Kris rolled his eyes. “You and your Dad drunk-bought it on a whim over champagne on your first trip home after you moved here. I’ve heard you tell this story five times and every single time I throw up a little.”

Suho blushed. “I wasn’t even nineteen then. I’d just started studying for my Masters degree. The point is, you’re much more worthwhile than a Porsche and money really isn’t an issue. You have support no matter what happens to us. Just wait till I introduce you to my family. Dad will start trying to pawn off silk ties and the family diamonds on you. He gave Kyungsoo a thirty-year-old bottle of wine once.” 

“Suho, how did you turn out the way you did and not a spoiled, lazy idiot?”

“He’s a really strict father, and I lived with my mom most of my life. She’s an angel.” 

“Can I meet her instead?”

“What, no silk ties and fancy wine for you?”

“He kind of scares me.” 

“Me too.” 

Suho put the last can of soup away and attached himself to Kris’s front, arms sliding around his back, rubbing his cheek against his collar. Kris leaned his head down against Suho’s. He could hear Ella singing in the bedroom as she played house with Sarah. Late afternoon sunlight slanted in through the kitchen window onto their windowsill garden. It was too perfect. Sometimes Kris expected something to snap and bring it all down.

“How’s Kyungsoo doing?”

Suho pulled back and propped his head on Kris’s shoulder to look at him. “It’s sweet that you care, but how would I know?”

“I know you better than that, Suho. You ask Seunghyun about him, don’t you?”

Suho’s hand snuck around from behind Kris’s back so he could bring it nervously to his face, but Kris caught it and brought it up to his own mouth, kissing soothingly over his knuckles. “You care about people too much to ignore how he’s doing.”

Suho visibly dragged his attention away from Kris’s lips. “He’s doing Seunghyun boyfriend. Um, I mean, he’s doing ok. Seunghyun says he has a boyfriend. Or at least he’s started bringing someone to parties. Don’t laugh at me.”

“’He’s doing Seunghyun boyfriend? For I moment I thought you meant he’s doing Jiyong and that was about to be very messy.” He dragged Suho’s hand out to the side to pull him in for a kiss, arms still around each other as if they were dancing. Suho came willingly, his small hands clutching tighter they way they always did when Kris kissed him. 

“PTA meeting tonight,” Kris said when they pulled apart, “The first of the year, which means everyone is going to be dressing up and trying to intimidate the shit out of any new moms.”

“Tonight? But I have a business dinner! I can’t cancel this late. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think you’d want to go. I sure don’t.”

“But it’s for Ella. Is she going?”

“Nope. No orientation needed for kids.” 

“She’ll be here alone?”

“Sure. She used to do that all the time.” 

“Your old apartment didn’t have working gas, Kris.”

“She knows not to touch anything she doesn’t know how to use. It’ll be perfectly fine.” He gazed at Suho’s conflicted expression, amused. “I can call Yixing if you want, mother.”

Suho’s eyebrow twitched. So defensive. Adorable. “How about Jongin or Sehun?”

“Jongin will be too shy to function and Sehun will spend the entire time on his phone.”

“No he won’t. Sehun loves Ella.” 

“Ella,” Kris said, leaning over to press a kiss against Suho’s pulse and hear his breath hitch, “will be fine,” he moved up and kissed Suho’s cheekbone, “without us.” He kissed Suho’s lips, staying there distractingly, tongue licking quickly along his bottom lip. He could feel Suho’s shoulders press in at the same time his hips bucked, just a little, and smiled, reaching down to put his hands in Suho’s back pockets. 

Suho let out the softest sound and slid his hands up under Kris’s shirt to run his palms warm over his sides.

“If we’re both going to be gone,” Kris said, hands squeezing, watching the way Suho’s eyebrows tilted upwards as he pressed back into them, “we should probably make her dinner now and tell her we won’t be here. Give her a movie to watch or something.”

“Huh?” Suho’s hands stilled against his back, the undistractable Vice President, completely distracted. 

“Dinner for Ella. You’re right, I’d rather she not use this kitchen without supervision. You have actual sharp knives and a stove with flames.” 

“Yeah. Ok.” 

As Suho pulled away, Kris grabbed his semi-hard dick through his jeans and laughed when Suho yelped.

Dinner was fun, which was good because he needed all the prep he could get before the horror that was to be the PTA meeting. As Suho fixed his hair and put on a fancy suit, Kris found his rattiest old band t-shirt and his most ripped-up skinny jeans, finishing it out with torn canvas sneakers and a hoodie. He carefully fucked up his hair in the mirror and smirked at his dark roots. “I look like a mess. I kind of miss this look sometimes.” 

“You kind of wear that look a lot. You make the nice clothes I bought you look messy. It’s a skill.” 

Kris smirked proudly.

“Why, may I ask,” Suho asked, watching Kris slide on a couple rubber bracelets with band names on them, “are you dressing like a starving college student?”

“There are several statements I like making at these things. First, all the other parents, mostly young housewives, are going to be dressed in either business casual or expensive gym clothes in order to impress each other. I think the entire competition thing is stupid and I like to say so by wearing stuff like this. Second, I like to intimidate the new parents too, and nothing does that better than snapping at people who ask if I’m someone’s older brother.”

“Aren’t you worried they’re going to continue looking down on you even though you are perfectly capable of taking care of your daughter now? They could still call child services.”

“Ah, yes. I’m accounting for that. I’ll be driving your Porsche.”

“No you won’t. I’m driving my Porsche.”

“You’re taking a taxi because even though you say you’re not drinking at this dinner, you get there with all those old men ordering the most expensive wine on the menu and calling you ‘kid’, and you’re going to want to. I don’t want you driving home after that.

“Also,” Kris said, picking up Suho’s own grandmother’s diamond earrings off the dresser and sliding them in right alongside one hoop and a black stud in his cartilage, “I’ll be wearing these. And that ring you have with the opals. Could you hand me that, please?”

Suho wordlessly reached into a small jewelry box on the bedside table and handed it to him, eyebrows high, lips parted, pupils blown. 

“Any other suggestions?”

“Ditch the ugly t-shirt. Wear the Moschino t-shirt I bought you, the one with the brand black-on-black right across the front that cost two hundred dollars. It’s subtle so they won’t notice immediately, and you’ll look hot.” 

“Cool. Can I borrow your black Rolex to go with it?”

“Yeah.”

“Awesome. I’ll look like I have a sugar daddy.”

“No, you’ll look like a kid with his parent’s black card.” 

“Green hoodie or red?”

“Red.” 

“Should I wear a snapback?”

“Don’t you think that’s going a bit far?” 

“I think I’ve got a Marvel one around here.” 

“Don’t wear the snapback. Too much.”

“Do I look hot?”

“Can you fuck me while wearing that t-shirt later?”

Kris sometimes forgot that underneath his blushing, bumbling exterior, Suho was absolutely shameless. 

 

Nobody glanced at the Porsche as he parked it, unfortunately, but they did glance at his holey jeans and hoodie with some confusion, and on the part of the mothers he knew, some level of disgust. They all endured a very boring speech by the new PTA president and then a plea for money by the treasurer, and then headed off to separate classrooms to discuss the year’s activities with the teachers for their childrens’ class. Kris took a seat on one of the desks in the back and watched other parents filter in, mostly mothers with perfect hair, some gathering wrinkles. One peppy young woman standing near him turned said, “I don’t think we’re supposed to sit on the desks.”

“I know we’re not supposed to sit on the desks.”

“Kevin, get off the desks.” Ah, his nemesis. 

“You’re not my mother, Betty.”

“Excuse me, I am the Vice President of the PTA!”

Kris smirked. “I’ll acknowledge that to mean something when you get my name right on the first try. Maybe.”

Betty steamed, her best Mom Face firmly attached at the eyebrows. Kris smiled sweetly and pulled his legs up onto the desk. 

“No wonder your daughter is disturbed.”

“Wasn’t your daughter the one that got suspended for kicking mine off the slide?”

“That was not Genevieve’s fault! That was an accident and your little demon blamed it on her! Even her teacher thought so!”

“Keep your voice down, please. People will stare.”

Kris had meant it sarcastically, because he expected her volume to increase throughout the evening as she became more drunk on PTA power, but she leaned closer and hissed, “Your daughter is a lying, violent little rat with a record of behavioral issues who has to sing for money on the subway with some man. Yes, we all know about that. Who is he, one of your boyfriends? Like the rich one that kept picking her up from daycare last year? My daughter is a hard-working sweetheart. She’d never hurt anyone and we all know that.”

“Fuck your daughter.” 

Betty had to be restrained. Kris had the good grace to be a little embarrassed. That was the worst beginning to a PTA meeting in a long time. Not as bad as the time he threw a mini white board at Eliza, but pretty bad.

After a short, clipped speech of welcome and rundown of the year, allowing few questions and no interruptions, the teacher got down to the business of organization. Kris had hopes for this teacher.

“The ladies at the library would like to know who all will be making use of the after-school daycare this year. Please raise your hands.”

Kris saw several people checking around the room to see who couldn’t pick their kids up from school or pay for the bus system. Kris did not raise his hand. Several people looked at him curiously. Betty and her friends were downright shocked. Kris hated to know what little excitement they had in their lives if his schedule was so stunning to them. 

Next they signed up for participation in the bake sale three weeks away. Kris signed up because he knew Suho would want to participate. More shock from the Betty corner. Kris wished he could get ahold of the rubber bands on the teacher’s desk without alerting anyone so he could shoot them at her. 

“…field trip on the twenty-first,” the teacher was saying. “We’ll be going to the natural history museum. This one is paid for with tuition, so there will not be a fee—“

“Will there be a gluten free option for lunch? My daughter, Madison, has a gluten allergy,” one of Betty’s friends interrupted. Carol. Kris was pretty sure her Madison had been the one that ripped up Ella’s coat.

“You can request specialty options, but it costs money. That was my next point. I’ll be sending home a form closer to the date.”

“Oh. Could I do it now?”

“No.”

“Why not?” 

The teacher took a minute to stare in disbelief and Kris snickered. Some people nearby turned to glare at him. He shut his mouth.

They went through the rest of the field trips, including the ones that cost money. Kris, for the first time, was able to raise his hand when she asked whose children would be going on them. Betty turned around the third time it happened and hissed loudly, “Craig, these are the ones you have to pay for.”

“My name isn’t Craig, bitch.” 

“This is a classroom!” Carol squeaked. 

“I don’t see any children.”

“Well you’re here,” Betty snapped. 

“Oh, clever. Good job. Want a cookie?”

“I will come over there and slap you.”

“Kinky. Not sure your husband would like that. Oh wait, he divorced you last year, didn’t he?”

Women gasped. Someone said “No!” 

“Mr. Wu, I will have to ask you to leave pretty soon,” the teacher said, but she sounded regretful. “Stop causing problems.”

They finished and then broke up into small groups to discuss suggestions and feedback, planning to reconvene later. Some groups left to stand in the hallway, but Kris’s timid group set up in the classroom near the group with Betty and Carol. Kris’s attention drifted from the asinine conversation to listen to Carol and Betty bickering about school lunches with another mother who was of the opinion that the movement for free lunches for a slightly raised tuition last year should have passed. They disagreed. 

“We wouldn’t have been able to choose what they fed our children!”

“Send them lunch from home!”

“But Genevieve likes school lunches! What if they had started feeding them pizza every day? I don’t think I’d be able to handle it if I was paying for them to make Genevieve fat.”

“You’re a lazy, shallow, idiot, aren’t you? No wonder your husband left you.” Kris said.

Betty stared, slack-jawed.

“Look at you smirk,” Carol screeched. Kris wondered if she actually thought that was a good line. “You don’t deserve a daughter. Your poor child!” Ow. “Would you say something like that to her?”

“She hasn’t gotten divorced lately, so no.” 

“How dare you judge Betty! She’s doing wonderfully with Genevieve after all their family has been through. You’re a terrible parent, making her walk to an empty home every day. I’ve seen the way she looks. Do you find her clothes in the dumpster? Do you ever even feed her? I haven’t stopped considering calling child services, so you might want to be a bit friendlier.”

Aha. There was an opening. “I’m touched that you care about Ella’s wellbeing, I really am. Her life is pretty hard when I have to work fourteen hour days to make sure she can stay in a good school with your lovely daughters. She worries when I go several days without food so she can eat. I hate that she had to live in an apartment where people murdered each other in the hallway. It was terrifying for us, but the alternative was an over-crowded shelter. I’m sure you understand how scary those conditions can be for a parent, Betty. You’ve been through hard times.

“If you’re so worried about how I manage to raise my daughter, why don’t you take her home after school so she doesn’t have to walk back through the city alone? Why didn’t you vote on free school lunches last year so she’d be able to have more food at home? Why do you let your own daughters make her life a living hell at the one place she really should be able to relax?”

They bristled, “Our daughters wouldn’t—they don’t—“ 

“They do. How the hell are you raising them if they think ripping apart people’s clothes and pushing them off slides are good ways to deal with people with harder lives than theirs?”

“Hold it right there, mister,” Betty yelled. Kris’s team gave up discussion and left the room to find somewhere quieter. 

“…mister?” Kris echoed. 

“How are we raising our children? You’re some role model. She gets in trouble for swearing. Who taught her to do that, hm? Why does she hit people? Why did she throw a stapler at Tommy last year?”

“Self defense, probably.” 

“You say its been difficult raising her, but do you really try? You have multiple ear piercings!” she yelled, as if that proved anything. 

“Don’t knock the diamonds, Betty.” 

“I’ll say anything I want about your glass diamond earrings.”

“Haha no they’re real. So is this designer t-shirt.”

“Your daughter is starving, and you spend your money on designer t-shirts and diamonds?”

“Nah. My boyfriend bought the shirt. The diamonds were his grandmother’s,” he fiddled with the opal ring, drawing Carol and Betty’s attention to it and the glistening watch. “See, while you were getting divorced, I moved in with a hot, rich guy who is more than happy to help take care of my disturbed daughter. Turns out I was a trophy wife all along. Just like the rest of you.”

He turned to see Betty staring at the watch and Carol staring at the shirt. “Wasn’t he a doctor, Betty? Didn’t he buy you designer clothes too? I used to hear about his gifts all the time, but not much about the man himself. Never met him.”

“Where is your boyfriend then?” Carol snapped on her friend’s behalf.

“Business dinner. Wished he could be here. Lent me the Porsche.” 

“That thing was yours?” She choked.

He smirked. There was the recognition it deserved. “I’m leaving. I’d rather not watch you two embarrass yourselves during the questions and comments portion of the evening and Suho asked me to fuck him when he gets home. Goodnight.” 

He heard Carol mutter “Crass…” behind him, but really didn’t give a shit.

 

The entire office came to the fall fair and bake sale, including the new janitor, and Yixing, and all this embarrassed the shit out Suho. Kris loved watching him turn bright red and hide under the table almost as much as he loved watching Betty turn bright red with fury as she watched. 

“He’s adorable, right?”

“How, exactly, did you con that man into being interested in you?”

“I introduced him to my daughter.”

They watched Ella run behind the table and drag Suho back out into the sunlight, yelling “Mommy’s a groundhog under the table!” Kris smiled widely.

“Mommy?” Carol asked.

“It suits him.”

“That’s so weird. You’re so weird. He’s probably a creep.”

“Oh man you’re so jealous its beautiful.” 

She turned and full out shoved him. 

“You know, for a woman so concerned about how my poor daughter was being raised, you’re remarkably upset that she has a good life now.”

“I’m not! Genevieve says she’s getting too conceited.”

“Long word for a seven-year-old. Are you sure you’re not just upset that Ella has better toys than Genevieve now? Poor Ella. She just can’t win. Being pushed off slides one year and being shit-talked by pathetic old women the next.” 

That shove kind of hurt. She was going to start finding branches next.

“Now you listen to me—“

“Kris, you have to help. Tao keeps calling me Betty Crocker and he’s eaten five cookies already,” Suho ran up and wrapped his arms around Kris’s waist with a squeaked “excuse me,” towards Betty. He looked very distressed and so adorable in that apron. “They’re never going to respect me again. Please come get them in line before Chanyeol and Baekhyun put whatever they’re planning into action.”

“Of course they’re not ever going to respect you again. You’re wearing an apron.”

“Carol made me wear it. She says it’s the uniform.”

Kris ripped it off Suho’s waist with some regret, but not much. Ella joined them with chocolate icing all over her face. 

“Here, let me get that for you,” Kris said, wiping all the chocolate off with the balled-up apron. 

“The apron! Why—“

“Suho, this is Betty, Vice President of the PTA. Carol is her friend.”

Suho had heard all about Betty. “Oh I see.” 

That. That was a dangerous voice.

Suho turned around to introduce himself, apologized for missing the PTA meeting, and proceeded to be the friendliest, most attractive, charming man for a few minutes, never letting Betty leave the conversation, extolling the excellence of the festival Betty had set up, and thanking her for letting him participate. So many beautiful smiles. Betty mumbled responses, turning even more red and scandalized. When Suho finally let her go, she wandered away, her path meandering, expression star-struck. She said nothing to Kris for the rest of the festival.

“You’re such a charmer.”

“I’m a businessman. Sometimes my business depends on making people like me.” 

Baekhyun and Chanyeol ran up from behind them holding a cake. Kris caught them. “No! Nope! You put that back where you found it. Don’t fucking doing it.” Parents made indignant noises all around them. Suho looked like he wanted to cry. Tao walked up with five different cake pops and and Ella trailing along after him holding just as many cake pops. Her face was once again covered with chocolate. 

“Ella, honey, do you want to share those cake pops with me?” Suho asked. “No? But mommy really wants cake pops and she’s not allowed to buy them until the festival is over.”

Ella handed him two cake pops. 

Ella’s teacher popped up beside them, kneeling down beside Suho. “You had five cake pops and you just gave your mom two. How many do you have now?”

“Three?”

“Three! You just used subtraction! What does five minus two equal?”

“…three?” 

“Yes! Good job!” The teacher and Suho both dove on Ella with a hug at once. Kris’s heart melted a little and he also knelt down to give her a hug. So did Chen.

“What are you doing down here?”

“Joining the group hug. Isn’t that what’s going on here?”

“Not quite, no.” 

The new janitor walked up holding two pies. “Everything going alright over here?”

“Why must you always sound so worried?” Suho sighed, and then stood up right into Chanyeol’s chin. They both collapsed into a pile of pained swearing.

“Well,” the janitor snorted. 

Xiumin and Luhan arrived late, arm in arm. They had a cute couple contest going with Sehun and Jongin, even though they weren’t dating. Jongin saw them and tugged on Sehun’s arm to try to get him to cuddle, or kiss him, or do really anything to beat them, but Sehun was too busy texting and Jongin slumped against his shoulder, defeated. Xiuhan: 18. Jonghun: 12. 

Kris had gotten him up a good five hours before his usually 4:00 pm wakeup time to come to this, so he wasn’t at all surprised when Yixing looped both arms around Kris’s back and nuzzled his face into his shoulder and, for all intents and purposes, went to sleep. Suho’s eye twitched dangerously. Kris smirked. “Careful, baby. Suho’s getting jealous.”

“Hrmph?” Yixing said, putting his head up a little and tightening his hold on Kris.

Suho was already stomping back to work, sans apron, bringing Ella with him. Kris giggled and watched him go. “He’s so jealous.”

“He’s pretty cute,” Yixing murmured and then put his head back against Kris’s shoulder. 

They stayed till the closing of the festival, making it the longest time Kris had ever stayed near Ella’s school in one go. Some of the quieter parents weren’t as bad as he though. Then again, the quieter parents rarely left their children’s sides and talked amongst themselves. He should take notes and just never talk to Carol or Betty again. 

Speaking of, there they were over at the broken-down, packed-up bake sale table talking so Suho as he stood helpless with a bag of cookies and brownies, Ella tugging at his jeans and standing on his toes. Kris went over to help. 

“—Very nice having you here. So helpful. He’s terrible when you’re not around,” Here Betty dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper and straightened up, laughing loudly, when Kris approached. 

“Uh huh,” Suho said, “No, I promise he’s just as foul-tempered and bitchy at home. It’s not just because I’m here. Oh hello dear.” 

Kris kissed the back of his neck. “Foul-tempered and bitchy?”

“M-hm. Betty thinks that you stay on your best behavior for me.” It was hard to see Carol or Betty’s flush under their pasted-on make-up.

Suho snorted, “You wish.”

“Life would get so boring.” 

“Ah, yes, I suppose,” Betty said. Her daughter ran up and started yanking on her pant leg. “Benton wants candy. Give me a dollar.” 

“Is that your daughter?” Suho asked.

“Yes! This is my Genevieve! Genevieve, come say hi to this nice man.”

Genevieve frowned sourly at Suho, still yanking at Betty’s clothes.

“I’m so glad I’ve found you then. I caught her hitting Ella and some other children with a stick earlier. Wouldn’t tell me who her mother was.”

“Wh-what?” Betty flushed, “Genevieve, why were you doing that?”

“Doing what? Didn’t do anything. Give! Me! A! Dollar!”

“Genevieve, we do not hit people with sticks!”

“Me and Benton want candy now!”

Suho picked Ella up and they left Betty to deal with that on her own. 

“Hey Ella,” Kris said on the car ride home, “I asked Jongin if he wanted to make you dinner and babysit you tonight. Would you like that?”

“Yes! Jonginnie! Will Sehun be there?”

“Probably.”

“Yay! Now?”

“Yes, now.”

“You asked Jongin what? Now?” Suho asked. 

“Yup. Get in the turn lane.”

“Ahh!”

They dropped Ella off at Jongin’s apartment, leaving her bouncing up and down in Sehun’s arms as Jongin played a version of peekaboo over Sehun’s shoulders.

“She has so many gay dads,” Suho said, staring out the window.

“And one gay mother.”

“Oh please. I don’t count. We should find her a mother figure. Maybe her teacher now will do some good. Maybe the janitor?”

“Are those the only two women you know? She’ll be fine.”

“Maybe Seunghyun knows some people we can introduce her to. Anyway, why are you pawning off our daughter with no notice?”

“Our?”

“I pay her tuition and sing her to sleep at night. I think she counts as mine too now. Kris, you’re trying to get the apartment empty for us, aren’t you?” 

Kris smirked. “Yes.”

“What are you planning?”

“Oh nothing too big. I just figured you could fuck me for a change.”

The corners of Suho’s mouth twitched, but otherwise he stayed admirably calm until he hit a red light, and then dropped his hands off the wheel and levelled a long, hungry stare at Kris, who just leaned against the window and smiled, enjoying the rare appearance of confident, sex-god Suho. 

“What brought this about?” he asked, pressing the gas with some urgency past the green light.

“Probably how good it felt when you tied me down and rode me last week. I kind of liked having you in control. Want to try more.” He let his knees fall open wider and slouched lower, hand sliding over to palm his dick through his jeans, knowing Suho could see out of the corner of his eye.

Suho had a will of steel, driving carefully and calmly through the evening traffic as Kris teasingly rubbed himself beside him, moans filling the small car. 

“Why must you act like a horny teenager?”

“You talk like you don’t like it.”

“I’m trying to drive. In the car, Kris? What are you going to do once we get to the apartments?”

“It’s such a sexy car. Can’t help myself. We should have sex in here sometime.”

“No way. Not in my car. You’re too tall anyway.”

“What would your Daddy say if he knew you had sex in the car he bought you?”

“He’d probably laugh for about half and hour and then congratulate me. We’re both adults. He knows what I get up to.” 

Kris stopped palming his dick through his jeans. “Really? How?”

“We get drunk and swap stories sometimes. Its super weird, but fun. He’s more of a horny teenager than you are.”

Kris wrinkled his nose. “I’m still kind of scared of him.”

“I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’ve stopped jerking off during this conversation.”

“Your dad is major turn off for me.”

“Good.” 

“Maybe my safeword should be ‘daddy’.” 

“Hell no. I will wreck this car. Don’t you ever bring the word ‘daddy’ into our sex ever for any reason.”

“No daddy kink for Suho?”

“Your daughter calls you daddy! How incredibly disturbing would that be if I heard you using that while we were…were…and then the next day Ella called you—ughhhhh.” 

Kris giggled and watched Suho blush, abandoning seduction as a lost cause until they got home. 

Then he turned has back to the elevator camera and stuck his hand right down his pants, staring Suho right in the face. Suho looked halfway between kissing him and smacking him, and then he flushed bright red and he brought his hands up over his face, sighing. “Why do I put up with you?” 

“I want your dick in me.” 

Suho moaned shamelessly.

As soon as they made it through the apartment door, Suho hooked the front of Kris’s jeans with two fingers and dragged him into the bedroom, nearly tripping over the set of toy dinosaurs Xiumin had bought Ella last Christmas. 

He wordlessly pulled Kris’s shirt over his head and then yanked his pants and boxers down. Kris gave him a curious look and then leaned down to remove them from around his ankles, pulling his shoes and socks off with them. Suho was already over at the dresser pulling out lube and his own, unused box of condoms. He threw them on the bed and then walked back to Kris, still fully clothed, and pulled his chin down to kiss him hard. “You’re sure about this?”

“Absolutely. Fuck me, Suho.”

“Can I, um, manhandle you a bit?”

Kris felt his cock twitch. “Yeah, go ahead. That’s the point of this, isn’t it?”

“If it hurts, tell me to stop.”

“Ok.”

“Good. Now get on the bed.”

Kris went quickly, heat heavy in his gut even as he snorted at Suho’s commanding tone. 

“You gonna punish me, Suho?”

“I’m only taking what you’re offering.” He crawled up over Kris and flopped down heavily, pressing his lips to Kris’s throat. “I’m too impatient to wait. Do you mind if we skip foreplay?”

“Wait, are you just gonna shove your dick in?”

“No! Oh my god!”

“Good. Then do whatever.”

Suho sat up, took one of Kris’s hips and rolled him over easily, dodging out of the way of his leg, and then grabbed his waist and Kris felt himself being lifted. Suho set him, gasping, on his hands and knees, and then immediately pressed a finger in up against his hole, mouth sucking against his skin. Kris remembered he had to stop breathing in at some point and start breathing out. It all came out in a woosh. The finger moved gently, pressing enough to catch the rim. His lungs felt crushed.

“Ah, its weird.” 

Suho hummed against the upper edge of his thigh and took the finger away to pop open the lube. Kris’s stomach clenched suddenly, like maybe he didn’t want that after all. Suho murmured “Shh, baby, I’ve got you,” and pressed a finger back in, dripping wet and cold. Kris gritted his teeth as Suho pushed past his rim. 

It stung slightly, but also felt intrusive and his first instinct was to want it out. “So weird.”

“It gets better.” He thrust slowly in, letting it sit there for a minute as Kris tensed and relaxed, sucking in breaths and wondering what Suho saw in this. Suho moved the finger, kissing gently up his spine as he thrust slowly in and out. 

“Ok. Ok not so bad.” The stinging had turned into a small ache. It felt ok. Suho carefully slid in another finger and the stinging came back. “My boner is completely dead.” Suho made a small worried noise and started twisting and scissoring. The ache returned slowly, this time with a hazy rush of pleasure. “oh,” he said. Suho smiled against his back and pressed searchingly down to find his prostate. He found it. 

“Oh fuck.” Kris dropped onto his elbows, dick throbbing.

“Oh there it is,” Suho said and continued pressing down, just holding it there and inching his fingers back and forth. Kris felt a moan bubbling up in his throat and tried to swallow it down. It came out in an urgent-sounding yelp. Suho murmured soothingly and began thrusting again, teasing at his prostate every few seconds, pleasure jolting up and up until Kris was sweating, thighs tensing as Suho pushed a third finger in, groaning deep in his chest and pushing back against Suho’s fingers.

“Feels good?” Suho asked, twisting his wrist as a stroked deep inside him. Kris gurgled, eyes squeezed tight with his head between his arms. Suho laughed softly, reaching around to tug at Kris’s dick. Kris jerked roughly forward into his hand a couple times before pulling away from both Suho’s hands and flopping sideways on the bed. “Too much,” he gasped. “Sensory overload. Please try again later.”

Suho laughed and Kris felt another affectionate moan leave his mouth just at the sight of Suho’s bright smile, his red lips, the sleeves of his blue button-up shirt pulled up over his solid forearms. He held his messy hands a few inches above his jeans.

“Why the fuck are you still dressed?”

Suho self-consciously rubbed his mouth with the back of his arm. 

“Are you still wearing shoes?”

“No no! Shoes and socks are off. Can you, um, help me with my pants. My hands are kind of…” 

“Unbelievable,” Kris snorted, but inched forward to undo Suho’s belt and button, yanking the zipper down in one quick pull. “Do you want to fuck me with your clothes on?”

“Is that ok?” Suho’s hands fluttered nervously over Kris’s head, not daring to touch his hair while still covered in lube and pre-come. 

Kris considered it. On one hand, he already felt weird enough about this without the additional power imbalance of being the only one naked. On the other hand, Suho looked pretty fuckin hot in jeans and a button-up. Suho had let him fuck him with that t-shirt on the other day. He could stand to return the favor. 

“Yeah that’s ok.” 

Suho smiled. “Good. Lie on your back.” 

“Jeez. Yes sir, Daddy.” 

Suho froze. “I will leave! We have not yet gone so far that my penis cannot shrivel up and die of horror.”

“Ok, Mom, jeez,” Kris giggled.

Suho tried to put his face in his hands, remembered they were still covered in lube, and ended up staring at the ceiling looking lost and frustrated. 

“Suho, could you please put that condom on and show me why you like getting fucked so much?”

Suho took a minute, then moved on his knees over to the condom and lube, muttering, “I can try, but I don’t have the battering ram of a dick that you do, so I don’t know if I can show you why _I_ like it so much.”

“Bit of a size queen, aren’t you?”

“Wasn’t until you came along.”

“Haha. ‘came.’”

“I think my dick is inverting. Please at least try to keep the mood up or I’m going to start having performance issues.” 

Kris promptly reached down between his legs and pressed two long fingers into his own ass, eyes squeezing shut in concentration and he tried to figure out how it worked from this angle, and then found his prostate, almost on accident, and thrust slow and long in and out of himself, moans spilling over with every brush of his fingers.

“Holy shit. No wonder you love it when I finger you,” he breathed. When Suho didn’t respond, he looked up to see Suho with his knees spread open, lips parted, fisting his own rapidly hardening erection as he stared at Kris laid out on the bed with his fingers knuckle-deep inside himself. 

“Fuck I’m good at this,” Kris gasped.

Suho nodded. “I know.” 

Kris tightened his fingers to his prostate, whimpering, and stayed pressed deep inside, working himself up until Suho dragged his hand out and pulled his hips bodily up onto his lap, lining himself up. “Ready?”

“Yeah.”

Suho pressed in. Kris tried to enjoy it the way you try to enjoy the sudden drop on a roller coaster. He knew it was supposed to feel good, exhilarating, supposed to take his breath away and lead to all sorts of fun further on, but it hurt. It hurt and he felt like he should reject it again, the pleasurable ache completely drowned out by his instincts to make it leave. He made a low sound of distress, gripping at the front of Suho’s shirt. Suho let him pull him down, kissing along his collar bone because he couldn’t reach his lips. 

The weight inside him became more and more pleasurable with each passing second, unexpected and powerful, and Kris wasn’t sure he liked it. He tried to relax, tried to focus on anything to feel more in control, but all he could feel was Suho’s shirt beneath his hands, Suho’s jeans under his naked thighs, and suddenly felt vulnerable and helpless. He hated vulnerable and helpless, hadn’t missed it. Loved Suho for taking those things away after so many years.

“Letting you keep your clothes on was a terrible idea.” He snapped, trying to rip open the buttons one by one with shaking hands. 

“I’m sorry,” Suho whispered and ground his hips deep into Kris. Kris gasped again, hands freezing on the third button and holding on tight as Suho started thrusting. It was incredible. Overwhelmingly good. He couldn’t do anything but lie there and moan. His arms tightened even as he told them to let go. His legs drew up closer to his body on his own accord. He couldn’t breath, couldn’t think. The mind-numbing pleasure pulsed hugely inside him. He felt open and bare and so, so exposed, but it still felt so good. His moans turned into frantic sobs. Suho slowed.

“Don’t stop. Don’t you fuckin stop,” Kris said.

“I’m sorry. Are you ok?”

“No! Don’t stop!”

Suho tentatively started again and Kris rocked back against him, pushing desperately. He managed to blink his eyes open and saw, though blurry tears, Suho’s beautiful face, his beautiful worried frown, so much care and love in the set of his eyebrows that Kris choked. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried, not when they were starving and he had to put up with terrible jobs, not when the PTA threatened to call child services and he’d nearly lost Ella, not when he’d left Suho. He thought, maybe, the last time he cried may have been the day Ella’s mother left. 

All the while the delicious push and pull continued low between his hips, each slide lacing pleasure up into his stomach and through his dick. Suho pressed soothing kisses into his chest as Kris worked his hands lower and lower over Suho’s shirts, pulling the buttons open till he could grip both edges and pull them down past his own sides, drawing Suho in closer. The control gave him an edge of calm. 

“Let me ride you.”

Suho thrust tightly in, gripped Kris’s body tightly to him, and rolled sideways, no questions asked, ending with Kris lying on top of him, dick still locking them together. Kris sat up slow, grinding down, unable to stop moving against the pressure. He pulled experimentally upwards and watched Suho’s eyes flutter as he sat back down. He had control. It was so much better. He began a rhythm, bracing himself against Suho’s strong chest the way Suho always did with him. 

He ground down, too lost in chasing the wonderful feelings to even moan. He shifted his hips back a little and got Suho’s dick rammed right up against his prostate, so he stayed bouncing there, head thrown back, mouth open, listening to Suho’s beautiful noises underneath him and let the overwhelming feeling build, gather to an almost painful intensity low in his gut. Suho’s thumbs soothed over his hips as he started jerking in small movements up to match Kris’s and Kris moaned low and long. 

The intensity built up higher and Kris moved faster, reaching for release. He jumped when he felt Suho’s hand slide from his hip to grab his cock. He tugged a couple times in time to their hips, and then the lovely heat broke and gushed through every nerve in his body, dizzying, cum landing all over Suho’s abs. He groaned softly, working his hips is slow, delicious circles right where it pressed nearly painfully against his prostate. When the oversensitivity got to be too much he dropped lower again, shuddering on top of Suho and trying to gather himself. 

He blinked his eyes open. Suho was staring up at him with a look of awe and a little distress. He kept making little frustrated noises and shifting his hips to look for friction. Kris realized he was right on edge with nothing to push him over. He circled his hips teasingly to watch Suho gasp and arch, fingers tightening on his hips.

Beautiful Suho. Beautiful, wonderful Suho waiting patiently at the cost of his own orgasm to make sure Kris was alright, always so concerned about Kris’s happiness, even during sex. When was he not absolutely perfect? He pulled up and off, and Suho whimpered in panic until Kris pulled the condom off him and dove right down with his mouth, sucking hard and using his own cum off Suho’s stomach as lube for his hand around the base. Suho came down Kris’s throat with a high whine. 

They lay still and breathed. 

“Are you ok?” Suho finally asked. 

“Yeah, I think so. Sorry about that.” 

“You scared me.” 

“I was just…taken by surprise, I guess, at how much control I was giving away.”

“More than when I tied you down?”

“Actually yeah. Everything was just really unexpected. I felt like I couldn’t stop even if I’d wanted to. Being vulnerable just freaks me out. It still felt so good though. I just wasn’t prepared to handle it.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed for that.”

“I wanted it. I’m glad you did. I think we should try it again sometime and try to make it even better, you know, without me crying everywhere.”

“The crying is what scared me.”

“It’s ok, Suho. If anyone had to take me that far out of my comfort zone, I’m glad it was you. I even enjoyed it a little. Holy shit.” 

Suho flopped his hand around until he found Kris’s and then pulled at his fingers until Kris crawled up his body. He stopped halfway up and pulled Suho’s pants off. Suho laughed a little and took care of his socks and underwear, finally sitting up to pull his shirt the rest of the way off and then lay back down. Kris pulled him in, pushing him up onto his side and spooning behind him, running his hand up and down Suho’s defined chest. His hand strayed into the cum getting tacky on his stomach.

“Gross. Maybe I should go clean this up.”

Suho grabbed his hand and pulled it up to his face, tongue sliding over his hand, cleaning it off.

“Why…do you always do that?” Kris asked, mesmerized by the soft, warm push of his tongue between his fingers. “That stuff is nasty.”

“It’s a sign of love,” Suho murmured into his palm. “It means I’d do anything for you.” 

Kris nuzzled into the back of his neck, biting back the sharp prick of tears behind his eyelids. “Thank you for loving me, Suho.”

“Thank yourself. You did all the work. I just kind of fell into it.” 

“We both know it wasn’t me. I’ll thank Ella later.” 

“Thank you for loving me too,” Suho said, “For a while there I thought maybe you wouldn’t.”

“Impossible,” Kris said.

They cuddled quietly for a bit, so many years and moments available in front of them, and so little uncertainty. Kris could get used to that.

“You know,” Suho said, “the boys will probably want to keep Ella for a few more hours. Maybe we could go for round two later?”

“I don’t think I’ll be up for it. Movie?”

“Nah. We rarely get this much time alone. I don’t want to pay attention to anything that isn’t you.”

They ended up in Suho’s warm kitchen freshly showered, half dressed, and baking cookies. Kris sat back against the cabinets, cookie in hand, and Suho came easily, the same slightly arrogant, a little judgmental, clumsy, silly Vice President III of Adverting he’d met almost a year ago slouching against him with messy hair and rumpled clothes, beautiful in the sunset.

“Never leave me for prince charming.”

“You are prince charming, Kris. I’m never leaving.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The End. I hope you enjoyed this child of mine.
> 
> Come visit me at [tumblr](http://ginforink.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/Ginforink).

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is loved and appreciated!
> 
> Come visit me at [tumblr](http://ginforink.tumblr.com) and [twitter](http://twitter.com/ginforink)!


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